Call for Paper Proposals: Intoxication and Atrocity: Alcohol, Drugs, and Violence, edited by Hilary Earl, Adam Jones, and Edward Westermann

The role of alcohol an dother intoxicating drugs in genocides and wars worldwide have only recently begun to command attention. For instance, books such as Edward Westermann's Drunk on Genocide: Alcohol and Mass Murder in Nazi Germany (2021) and Norman Ohler's Blitzed: Drugs in Nazi Grmany (2017) have explored the place of intoxicants in Nazi culture and criminality, illustrating the ways in which alcohol builds social cohesion and camaraderie, heightens emotions, disinhibits behaviour, and facilitates violence, aggression, and impulsive behaviours. However, there is little systematic study of the use of intoxicants, for multliple purposes, during and after other conflicts and mass atrocities. Intoxication and Atrocity: Alcohol, Drugs, and Violence, will examine how, why, and under what circumstances intoxicants are used (or not) among groups in a variety of conflict situations. The volume will represent the most wide-ranging and multifaceted investigation of intoxicants yet attempted. As such, the editors invite scholars in various disciplines and geographical regions to submit proposals for essays that offer innovative perspectives on intoxicants and atrocity. 

Possible topics include:

• The use of intoxicants to promote killing
• The use of intoxicants in acts of violence
• The role of celebratory ritual among perpetrators
• The perpetrator's use of intoxicants as means of disinhibation or coping
• The examination of physical and psychological intoxication in the process of mass atrocity
• Intoxicants and military culture
• Gender and the role of intoxicants (women and intoxicants/masculinity and intoxicants)
• Intoxicants and paramilitaries
• Intoxicants and child soldiers
• Intoxicants and gang culture
• Intoxicants as they relate to violence in specific cultural, geographical, and national conexts (eg. Guatamala, Argentina, North Africa/Islamic world, South Africa, Indonesia, Cambodia, Balkans, and Eastern Europe)
• The cultural contexts of intoxicants
• The influence of modernity on the use of intoxicants
• The absence of intoxicants and the concept of "sober" violence/genocide