Warwick Drinking Studies Network
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The Warwick Drinking Studies Network is an interdisciplinary research group that brings together scholars who work on any aspect of drink and drinking culture in any society and in any time period.
Welcome to our website - simply click on the following links to take you to the section you are interested in:
If you would like to join the network, or have any questions, please contact Mark Hailwood: m.hailwood@exeter.ac.uk
Upcoming Events:
We have just secured a generous grant of support from the Economic History Society to allow us to organise a two-day conference, for which we hope to bring as many network members together as possible. The (provisional) dates for the conference are 9-10 February 2013, and the intention is to examine the economic and social history of alcohol production, trade, and consumption through a series of comparative case studies, or “Biographies of Drink”, including those focusing on the present day, and those undertaken by scholars working outside of the field of history. We are in the process of finalising the arrangements for the conference before issuing a formal call for papers, but further information on the key themes and issues we hope to address can be found here. The British Sociological Association Alcohol Study Group are holding their symposium and AGM at Leeds Met in July, and the day will feature a roundtable discussion of the proposition: 'The UK would be a better place with tougher laws restricting alcohol use'. For a poster containing more information, click here
Papers are invited for this international conference on alcohol and drug regulation to be held at Armada House, Bristol, next June. The conference will consider all aspects of drug and alcohol regulation, and papers dealing with any place or time period are welcome. For more information, including where to submit your paper/panel proposals, download the poster by clicking here If you would like me to advertise an event you are organising here on the website, or if you come across an event you think network members may be interested in, please email me the details at m.hailwood@exeter.ac.uk. Recent Events:
On the 23rd September 2011 the network held it's second annual symposium at the University of Warwick. The theme for the day was 'Drink and the Life Cycle', and the two panel sessions - each of three papers - and the plenary address given by Professor Gill Valentine from the University of Leeds, addressed the different relationships to alcohol of different ages groups across from a range of disciplinary, geographic and historical perspectives. The resulting discussions were particularly thought-provoking - in particular the implication that the attitudes towards alcohol consumption of young people in contemporary Britain do differ considerably from preceeding generations and from historical patterns. If you would like to find out more about the themes and discussions that arose at the symposium then you can read Deborah Toner's excellent conference report, attached here
The Centre for the History of Retailing and Distribution (CHORD) at the University of Wolverhampton hosted a conference on ‘Food and Beverages: Retailing, Distribution and Consumption in Historical Perspective’, on the 7th and 8th September 2011. The Warwick Drinking Studies Network convened two panels at this conference, one entitled 'Drinking Dens? New Perspectives on Clubs and Public Houses, c.1600-2000', and the other 'Gendering the Retail and Consumption of Alcohol in Comparative Perspective'. The event was very successful, and the panels worked very well together. As a result, network co-ordinators Mark Hailwood and Deborah Toner have arranged to co-edit a special edition of the journal Brewery History, under the banner of the Warwick Drinking Studies Network. This will include extended versions of papers delivered at the conference that focused on the subject of drink or drinking. Watch this space for publication details, which will appear in due course.
On Thursday 5th May 2011 the Warwick Drinking Studies Network hosted a 'Windows on Research' event at the Wolfson Research Exchange in Warwick University Library. There were two main aims for the event - to publicise the progress the network has made since its inception in September, with a view to attracting new members - and to encourage debate amongst participants on the way alcohol is generally perceived in broader public debates and policy discussions. It was suggested to attendees - of whom there were over fifteen, from a range of disciplinary backgrounds - that the role alcohol plays in society tends to be portrayed in a negative light within public discourse (that is, as a 'problem') when it fact the work of many scholars interested in drinking cultures both past and present often demonstrates that alcohol consumption also serves a number of 'positive' functions. Participants were then invited to bring to bear their own research findings to either confirm or contest this premise. The ensuing discussion was both stimulating and wide-ranging - and you can hear it for yourself in the form of a podcast, available here to listen to or download [approx. 1 hour long]:
Mark Hailwood has also written a brief blog, containing some further information on the event, available here.
Items of Interest:Professor Chris Hackley on Channel 4 News, responding to new government guidelines on alcohol consumption: Network member Chris Hackley appeared on Channel 4 News on 10th January 2012 to offer an expert opinion on MP's recommendations that individuals should observe two 'non-drinking days' a week. You can watch the relevant feature here.
TV series 'Pub Dig' - featuring the network's Beat Kümin: The History Channel and Channel 5 have collaborated on a mini-series on excavations at historic pubs. The series has now finished, but the episdoes are available on the Channel 5 website until April 2013. Episode four focuses on the Olde Reindeer at Banbury, and features an interview with Beat. For the episodes, click here.
Network members participate in TV show discussion of student alcoholism: On Monday 24th October network members Chris Hackley and Matthew Jackson took part in a TV show discussion of student alcoholism. The discussion featured on Warwick students' online TV channel SIBE, and included students, a police officer, a charity worker and academics. Discussants explored questions about both the way students consume alcohol, and how it is promoted on campus. You can watch the discussion by clicking here. (It begins about 15 minutes in).
Is the alcohol message all wrong? Kate Fox, social anthropologist and author of popular social science books, has attracted some attention with a recent Radio Four proramme and BBC News website article, in which she argues that current debates about alcohol consumption in the UK completely overlook the extent to which drunken behaviour is culturally determined. As the issues raised go to the heart of many of the discussions we have had at recent network events - the balance between positive and negative discourses about alcohol consumption; the relationship between the biological and the cultural in the analysis of drinking behaviours; and the challenges of creating a productive dialogue between scholarly research into drinking and wider public debates - network members will undoubtedly find something interesting in these items.
IAS Incubation Award, 2011-1012: Network members Beat Kümin (History), Hilary Pilkington (Sociology), Rebecca Earle (Comparative American Studies), and Dieter Wolke (Psychology) have just secured an Institute of Advanced Study Incubation Award, which provides 'pump-priming' funding for collaborative research ventures. It is hoped that this will culminate in a major research project bid, under the umbrella of the Warwick Drinking Studies Network. This is an exciting development, and it is hoped that other collaborative research activity and project bids will emerge from within the network framework.
Alcohol the most harmful drug of all? A recent review published in the Lancet has suggested that alcohol is the most harmful drug, based on a multicriteria analysis. Network members may well be interested in reading more here. The issues raised by the review are particularly pertinent in relation to our recent discussion about alcohol as more than just a problem - see the podcast in the recent events section.
Major New Publication in Drinking Studies: Publication of a new four volume collection of (translated) primary sources on the history of the early modern public house. Thomas Brennan (General Editor), Public Drinking in the Early Modern World 1500-1800: Voices from the Tavern (4 vols, London: Pickering and Chatto, 2011). Volume 1: France, ed. T. Brennan; Volumes 2-3: The Holy Roman Empire, eds B. Kümin and B. Ann Tlusty; Volume 4: America, eds D. Hancock and M. McDonald. Content and availability.
Joseph Rowntree Foundation Publication: 'Young People and Alcohol' In December 2010 the Joseph Rowntree Foundation published a report on young people and alcohol. The report explores the influence of both existing cultural attitudes around alcohol, and new and emergent attitudes, that separate younger drinkers' consumption from that of other age groups. Given that our 2011 symposium focused on issues of the different relationship to alcohol of differerent age groups, this report may be of interest to network members. It can be accessed here.
Please email me if you come across any items of interest or recent publications that you would like me to add to this section: m.hailwood@exeter.ac.uk
Related Websites:
Network members may be interested in visiting the website of the Alcohol and Drugs History Society - a North American based research network which has its own journal, annual conference and blog. It is an excellent resource for keeping up with the latest North American publications and conferences in the area of drinking studies.
The website for a cross-chronological project that's recently started called "Taverns, locals and street corners: Cross chronological studies in community
Network member Ruth Cherrington runs this website on working men's clubs, both past and present, which includes a section on academic interest in drinking - including several references to the network. Website of the recently established BSA Alcohol Study Group, including information on upcoming events. The website of the Pub History Society: http://www.pubhistorysociety.co.uk/ The website of the Brewery History Society: http://breweryhistory.com/
If you would like me to add a website to this list, please email me the link to m.hailwood@exeter.ac.uk
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Further information will be provided here, and via our mailing list, in due course.
