Psychoactive substances, whether narcotics, stimulants or hallucinogens, affect their users as individuals, yet their social context informs their cultural significance. At different times and in different places, different substances have become a locus of fascination or anxiety, praise or opprobrium, patriotism or prohibition. How, when, and why did substances such as alcohol, caffeine, cannabis, cocaine, opium, tea, or tobacco acquire the cultural meanings that they did? How have consumers of psychoactive substances crossed the border between medical and recreational use, and how has society responded to any perceived transgressions? How have these substances been represented in literary, journalistic, legal, or scientific texts?

Following from our successful conference in September 2012, we plan to publish a series of papers on psychoactive substances. Papers may take an anthropological, historical, literary, or sociological approach, but should provide a context-aware analysis of the psychoactive substance in a specific time and place. Our geographic scope is pan-European, and we particularly encourage case studies of less-commonly studied societies in Iberia, Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, the Baltic, or the Balkans. Scholars have so far expressed an interest in topics such as Danish morphine, French hashish, German cocaine, German mescalin, Greek Heroin, Hungarian wine, Italian tobacco, and Russian Tea. Chronologically, our earliest paper discusses the age of exploration, but most papers examine the late nineteenth or twentieth centuries.

The Journal of Social History has expressed interest in publishing the project. All papers will go through a standard peer-review process. For journal submissions, please follow the style guide for the Journal (Chicago-style end-notes, not in-text citations).

Final papers will be due by the end of January 2013, but potential contributors are welcome to contact the editors with queries at any time.

Please send submissions to both editors: Alexander Maxwell alexander.maxwell(at)vuw.ac.nz Richard Millington richard.millington(at)vuw.ac.nz