Dear colleagues.  Please reply to the conference 
organizers at [log in to unmask] for more information.


IN VINO VERITAS:
A SYMPOSIUM ON WINE AND THE INFLUENCE OF BACCHUS
FROM CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY THROUGH THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

By the time of Pliny the Elder, in vino veritas 
(“in wine, truth”) had already attained the 
status of aphorism, having made its earliest 
appearance in the writings of the Greek poet 
Alcaeus.  Beyond the reaches of the Greco-Roman 
world, wine has also had a long history.  Its 
fortunes may be traced around the globe through 
the medieval and early modern periods when trade 
in wine increasingly linked diverse cultures, the 
social uses and symbolic associations of wine 
proliferated, and Bacchus made his appearance on 
numerous stages, in images, and in a wide range of other texts and contexts.

The Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies 
(CEMERS) at Binghamton University invites papers 
for a symposium to be held on the Binghamton 
University campus, April 24–25, 2009.  Papers may 
address any area of scholarship concerning wine, 
its symbolic import, its appearance in or impact 
on cultural production (from painting to poetry), 
and its effects.  Papers are also welcome on 
Dionysus/Bacchus, the god of wine, from classical 
antiquity to the eighteenth century. We encourage 
submissions in a broad range of disciplines, 
methodologies, and perspectives. Possible topics 
include, but are not limited to:

·         The production and consumption of wine

·         The ritual use of wine (social, political, religious)

·         The effects of wine in thought and discourse

·         Wine and its associations with disease

·          The medicinal use of wine

·          Wine in trade and commerce

·         Wine in the economy and culture of monasteries

·         Wine and conviviality

·          Wine in court culture

·         Wine in folk culture

·         Wine in myth

·         Wine in prose and poetry

·         Wine in song

·          Wine and lust

·          Wine and allegory

·         Bacchus, the god of wine, as an allegorical figure

·         Bacchus in text

·         Bacchus in the visual arts

·         Bacchus on stage

·         Wine and archaeological study

·         Inebriation and the law

Proposals for individual papers (20 minutes 
maximum) should be no more than 500 words in 
length, and may be sent either as an attachment 
in Microsoft Word format or as text within an 
e-mail message to [log in to unmask] (“Re: IN 
VINO VERITAS Conference). Those wishing to submit 
a hard copy should forward it to: CEMERS 
[ATTN.:  IN VINO VERITAS Conference], Binghamton 
University, P.O. Box 6000, Binghamton, 
NY  13902-6000. We also welcome proposals for 
integrated panels. Panel organizers should 
describe the organizing principle of the panel 
and send abstracts, names, and affiliations of 
each participant. A panel should consist of no 
more than three papers, each twenty minutes in 
length. Selected papers will be published in 
Acta, a journal of the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies.

Submission Deadline:  Please submit abstracts by December 15, 2008.


Dan Malleck, PhD
Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada.
Secretary/Treasurer, The Alcohol and Drugs History Society
Editor-in-chief, Social History of Alcohol and 
Drugs: An Interdisciplinary Journal
http://historyofalcoholanddrugs.typepad.com

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