Intoxication in Historical and Cultural Perspective

• Start date: 01 October 2008
• End date: 31 August 2010

This Research Fellowship divides into three strands.

1. A book called England 1500–1700: An Early Modern Society? This examines the analytical category of 'early modernity' and its use by both historians and historically-minded social scientists. It appraises the relationship between historical practice and social theory and offers a new interpretation of the antecedents of modernity.
2. Three articles on the theme of 'Intoxicants and Intoxication in Early Modern England'. Intoxicant is here defined broadly to include all substances that have a recognised impact on the body's physiological and mental processes; and the articles will utilise archival materials to explore the production, exchange and consumption of intoxicants in the 16th and 17th centuries. A premise is that the expansion in the market for intoxicants was a defining feature of early modernity - that, indeed, intoxicants can be understood as one of the key drivers of social change.
3. An inter-disciplinary network based at the University of Leeds and the Victoria and Albert Museum. Involving a website, seminars and conference, it will bring academics and non-academics together to discuss intoxication from a variety of perspectives and result in an edited volume of essays on Intoxication in Historical and Cultural Perspective.