Call for Papers: Tobacco in the Early Modern imagination

A one-day conference at Chetham’s Library, Manchester, 15 March 2013

Plenary speaker: Dr Lucy Munro (Keele University)

We are looking for several 20 minute papers on any aspect of the way that tobacco was represented, formulated, desired, commodified, traded and investigated in the early modern world.

Papers might consider: tobacco and internationalism; maritime disputes and piracy; destruction and violence; the medicalization of smoking; smoking and gaming; tobacco and gender; physiology, psychology and addiction; pipes and prosthesis; performance; early modern drugs more generally; colonial dominion and the early modern subject; mapping; portraiture; death; tobacco and encounter; sexuality; medical tobacco; youth culture; taxation and legal issues; the development of druggist shops; the abject; smoke as revenant; purgation and disgust. We might also consider that the word ‘tobacco’ does not appear in the works of Shakespeare.

Papers will also be considered that are more methodological in focus (such as those that consider interdisciplinary approaches or arise from the medical humanities, new directions in theory, collaborative research and presentation, impact or knowledge exchange)

The day will also involve some workshop sessions with the magnificent collections held by the library: http://www.chethams.org.uk/

Please send abstracts of 250 words to:

Jerome.degroot@manchester.ac.uk

Deadline: 30 January 2013