[Air-L] Fwd: Critical Perspectives on Addiction (CFP)

Jessie Daniels jessiedanielsnyc at gmail.com
Mon Sep 5 11:52:09 PDT 2011


This call for papers may be of interest to some on the list who may be doing
critical work on Internet or video-game "addiction."

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Julie Netherland <julie.netherland at gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Sep 5, 2011 at 1:53 PM
Subject: Critical Perspectives on Addiction
To: Jessie Daniels <jessiedanielsnyc at gmail.com>


Below is a call for papers for an edited volume in the series Advances in
Medical Sociology.  The volume is seeking contributions that examine the
expanding meanings and uses of "addiction" to explain a range of behaviors,
including those related to technology and media.  Contributions that explore
t.v., internet, cell/smart phone, video gaming, and social media "addiction"
are especially welcome.

*Call for Papers:  Critical Perspectives on Addiction* (Volume 14 of Advances
in Medical Sociology<http://www.emeraldinsight.com/products/books/series.htm?id=1057-6290>
)

Editor: Julie Netherland (City University of New York Graduate Center)

Series Editor: Professor Barbara Katz Rothman

Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing

Our understandings of addiction are rapidly changing.  New technologies and
biomedical treatments are reconfiguring addiction as a brain disease, and
the concept of “addiction” is expanding to cover an ever widening array of
substances and behaviours, from food to shopping.  As addiction has taken up
the discourse of neuroscience, gained some legitimacy within mainstream
medicine, and become popularized through reality televisions shows and media
attention to celebrity “addicts,” its cultural resonance has increased, but
the meaning of “addiction” remains contested and confused.  Despite new
efforts to medicalize addiction, moral and punitive frameworks for
addressing addictions persist, and theories about addiction are also
increasingly framed within neoliberal and public health ideologies that
emphasize the individual’s responsibility to make him or herself “well.”  This
edited volume of Advances in Medical Sociology aims to look critically at
how addiction has been framed historically, how it being characterized and
understood through contemporary cultural representations, how new treatments
and technologies are reconfiguring addiction, and how “addiction” is being
expanded beyond illicit drugs and alcohol to explain phenomena such as
“excessive” eating and gambling and the exponential rise in prescription
narcotic use.  This volume also seeks to examine how medical, behavioural
and punitive frameworks for understanding and treating addiction come
together to shape and control “addicts.”  Building on a rich sociological
literature about drugs and addiction, this volume aims to interrogate the
meaning(s) of addiction and critically examine the ways in which addiction
is used as a lens for understanding individual behaviour, deviance, illness,
politics, and policy.  Empirical pieces are especially encouraged.



This edited volume aims to be a benchmark text in the sociology of
addiction, bringing together a broad array of critical perspectives and
issues.  Therefore, we are calling for papers addressing a wide variety of
topics pertaining to the sociology of addiction, including - but not limited
to:

·       Historical  and new efforts to medicalize addiction

·       Critical interrogations of medical, public health, scientific,
behavioural, moral, and punitive frameworks for understanding  and/or
treating addiction

·       Changing perceptions of addiction and addictive disorders within
different settings and in the broader society

·       The rise of novel applications of addiction frameworks (e.g.,
obesity as caused by ‘food addiction’) and novel treatments (e.g., deep
brain stimulation, vaccines, and psychopharmaceuticals, like buprenorphine
and naltrexone)

·       Critical analyses of non-substance addictions (e.g., gambling,
shopping, sex, internet, etc...) and how these support and/or challenge
traditional notions of addiction

·       Representations of addiction in the media and popular culture

·       Addiction treatment interventions and how they reflect and/or shape
larger sociopolitcal contexts

·       The relationships between frameworks for understanding addiction,
interventions to address it, and subjectivity

·       The relationship between addiction and larger sociological
constructs, such as racism, gender, structure/agency, etc...

·       The rise in addiction to prescription medications and how this
challenges existing conceptual, policy and treatment approaches to drug
addiction.



This list should be treated as suggestive rather than prescriptive.  Papers
addressing other relevant topics are welcome as are informal inquiries about
proposed topics.

Potential contributors should email a 500-750 word abstract by October 3,
2011 to: julie.netherland at gmail.com .

Informal inquiries to this address are also welcome. Name and institutional
affiliation of author(s) should also be supplied, including full contact
details of the main author. Proposals will be reviewed by the editor, and
authors notified by November 7, 2011. The deadline for full submissions
(7500-8500 words) will be February 7, 2012. Publication of the volume is
expected in mid- to late 2012.



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