Race and The Matter of Intoxication
Call For Papers
18th - 19th April 2024

With Keynote Speakers:
Dr. Amber Musser and Dr. La Marr Jurelle Bruce

This two day conference at the University of Texas at Austin will focus on the intersection of race, addiction, and intoxication. From the earliest 19th Century impulses toward prohibition to the contemporary War on Drugs, Western conceptualizations of drugs and particularly narcotics have been intimately interwoven with notions of race. This conceptual intersection of intoxication, addiction, and race has often had devastating consequences for communities of color. Taking this history as our point of departure, this conference will highlight critical scholarship concerning the intersection of race and drugs.

Questions for consideration include: How has race informed the historical discourse surrounding drugs or states of intoxication, addiction or sobriety? How have notions of sobriety, compulsion, and pleasure figured into conceptualizations of revolutionary or fugitive subjects? How have writers, filmmakers, musicians, and other artists of color dealt with the racialization of the War on Drugs? How has Anti-Blackness informed the medical and legal regimes responsible for the conceptualization of “narcotics”? In what forms/ways has the psychedelic been bound to and/or formulated through conversations related to coloniality and racialization? What are the racial dynamics of “drug treatment”? How have notions of gender and sexuality informed the racialization of drugs? We invite these questions and more to address through lively conversations.

We are interested in papers dealing with fields such as:

-Black Studies
-Indigenous Studies
-Ethnic Studies
-Literary and Film Studies
-Cultural Studies
-Performance Studies
-Queer Theory
-Disability Studies
-History of Medicine and Pharmacy
-Psychedelic Studies
-Science and Technology Studies
-Legal Studies
-Sociology

Scholars should submit proposals of no more than 300 words. Presentations should be no longer than 20 minutes. In your proposal, please include any technology required for your presentation. Proposal deadline: February 29, 2024.

Please submit proposals to raceandintoxication@gmail.com