David:
How do we obtain registration information?
Kind regards,
Kevin
Kevin Grace
Head and University Archivist
Archives & Rare Books Library
2602 McMicken Circle
P.O. Box 210113
University of Cincinnati
Cincinnati, OH 45221-0113
(513) 556-1959
(513) 556-2113 (FAX)
www.libraries.uc.edu/libraries/arb/archives/grace.html
-----Original Message-----
From: Alcohol and Drugs History Society [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of David Fahey
Sent: Monday, February 04, 2008 2:33 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: coffee conference
A Conference on the Moral, Economic, and Social Life of Coffee, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio fall 2008
organized by Robert Thurston, Professor of History
[log in to unmask]
Dates: Friday, October 31-Saturday, November 1, 2008. Participants
are asked to reach Oxford, using the Cincinnati (CVG) or Dayton (DAY) international airport, one day before the conference begins.
Purpose: To bring together people from business and academia, drawing from various sectors and levels of the coffee business and from scholars who study the industry, the drink, and its impact on societies around the world. To discuss the problems facing coffee farmers, sustainable production, the environment, and the future of coffee. To increase public awareness of issues of politics, ecology, and social justice connected with the industry. To develop materials for a book that will draw together stories and opinions from many areas and levels of coffee production, processing, and marketing. To develop a portal web site for coffee studies.
Audience: General and academic. Miami University, a beautiful campus, is located an hour from both Cincinnati and Dayton, two hours from Columbus; Lexington, Kentucky; and Bloomington and Indianapolis, Indiana. Oxford, Ohio is an hour from both the Cincinnati and Dayton airports. Announcements of the conference will be placed on listservs and in academic and trade journals. Anticipated attendance is 150-200.
Background: Coffee is the second most valuable commodity traded legally around the world. It has played a crucial role in globalization since the 17th century, and it is central to the study of globalization's continuing effects. Grown in more than 50 countries by 20-25 million families, then processed, traded, and sold by millions of other people, coffee is an immensely important item in the world economy. Beginning with English coffee houses in the 1650s, the drink's impact on western social, cultural, and political life has been huge. It has played a major role in social upheaval in Latin America but also in achieving stability in Costa Rica. Coffee has been a basic factor in bringing profound social and racial change to various regions of the world, while it has provided an important source of foreign exchange to many producing countries.
Keynote Speaker: Sidney Mintz, one of the world's foremost anthropologists, author of Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History. Professor Mintz will speak on issues of how and why consumers "choose" various commodities among all those available to them. His talk will bring insights from anthropology and history together and will provide a framework for the conference.
The Conference: Speakers will consider coffee's past and continuing impact on issues of labor supply and conditions, market fluctuations, new technology, the environment (including eco-tourism), political change, and social justice. Bringing people involved in the business, from farms to roasters to multi-national firms, together with scholars concerned with many aspects of coffee's impact in past and present should produce a forum for lively and productive interchange.
Anticipated Results: A book drawn from conference proceedings should have wide appeal for classroom use and general readers. The organizer has experience in producing such a volume. The book will present stories and opinions about what is involved at each level of the coffee business and present case studies of coffee's social, political, and environmental impact. Since the point of the conference is to allow participants to communicate with each other and the general public about coffee, articles will be jargon-free and clear. We also plan to create a permanent web site as a portal to other sites, articles, and bibliographies on coffee.
A nominal charge will be made for attendance, which will cover costs of the program, lunch on Friday and Saturday, coffee and snacks.
Other participants include:
Kennedy T. K. Gitonga, Research Officer - Economist, Ruiru, Kenya
Stuart McCook, Guelph University, on coffee rust disease
Charlie Kwit, Wittenberg U.
Geoff Watts, Intelligentsia Coffee, on sustainability
Ernest Carman, Café Cristina, Costa Rica, on running a sustainable farm
Ilhem Baghdadli, World Bank
Procter & Gamble rep to be named
Kim Moore, Dir. of Business Development-Coffee and Hot Beverages, TransFair USA
Manoel Correa do Lago, Rio de Janeiro, coffee exporter
Kenneth Davids The Coffee Review
Robert Thurston, Miami U.
Bruce Robbins, Columbia U.
Steven Topik, UC Irvine
Jonathan Morris, U. of Hertfordshire
William Clarence-Smith, School of Oriental and African Studies, U. of London
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