Location
St Anne's College, Oxford
Conference on “Alcohol, Psychiatry and Society”
Alcohol consumption is currently seen as a major public health hazard across the globe. The medicalisation of alcohol use has become a prominent discourse that guides policy makers and impacts public perceptions of alcohol and drinking. This symposium intends to map the historical and cultural dimensions of these phenomena. Emphasis is on medical attitudes and theories regarding alcohol consumption and the changing role of alcohol in the fields of psychiatry and mental healing. The intention is to explore the shift from the use of alcohol in clinical treatment, as part of dietary regimens, incentive to work and reward for desirable behaviour during earlier periods to the emergence of alcoholism as a disease category that requires medical intervention, is covered by medical insurance and considered as a threat to public health.
The conference is a collaborative initiative and supported by Humanities and Social Sciences at Oxford Brookes University (UK) and the Research Unit for the History of Medicine at the Centre for Psychiatry Südwürttemberg, Ravensburg (FRG).
Further information and enquires: http://www.brookes.ac.uk/hss/events/alcohol,-psychiatry-and-society/