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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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