The Mediterranean: The Land of the Vine and…

11-12 September 2025, Aix-en-Provence, France

Due 1 June 2025

The Mediterranean Seminar in conjunction with The American College of the Mediterranean announce “The Mediterranean: The Land of the Vine and…,” the Mediterranean Seminar Fall 2025 Workshop to be held from 11 & 12 September in Aix-en-Provence, a meeting made possible thanks to the generous support of The American College of the Mediterranean.

The workshop will feature two keynote speakers, three workshopped papers and round-table sessions.

Keynote speakers:
Paulina Lewicka (University of Warsaw)
Anthony Triolo (The American College of the Mediterranean)

Fernand Braudel famously characterized the Mediterranean as a landscape of the vine and olive. The earliest established origin of wine (as well as beer and distilling) was in the Mediterranean region. More than merely a foodstuff or intoxicant, wine became a crucial element in social, medicinal, cultural and religious practices around the region, and consequently grape production become a pillar of local economies and of regional and transregional trade. It was produced since the pre-historical era and disseminated by the Phoenicians, wine became emblematic of Mediterranean culture in Antiquity and constitutes a key commercial sector today. Distilled grape pomace flavored with anise (anís, pastis, sambuca, ouzo, raki, arak) is also consumed around the region, alongside fermented distillates of fig, palm and dates. Hashish and other narcotics were consumed through much of the region. Nevertheless, intoxication was regarded with ambivalence – both as a medium of euphoria and transcendence and indiscretion and a threat to the rational and moral order. For Christians and Jews wine came to be an essential element of observance. For Muslims grape wine was generally considered forbidden; nevertheless grapes and wine continued to be produced by minority communities, and consumed widely (and often openly) by Muslims. The Islamic wine party became a secular ritual, while genres of secular and religious poetry across the Abrahamic faiths celebrated wine and intoxication.

We invite papers that deal with any aspect of the production, distribution, regulation and consumption of grapes, wine, and other intoxicants in the Mediterranean world from Antiquity to the present, together with depictions, rituals, and attitudes to wine and intoxication, whether literal or metaphorical, historical or imagined, as seen from disciplinary perspectives as diverse economic, social, cultural, or political history, literature, history of philosophy, history of science and medicine, art and art history, musicology, anthropology or any related humanities and social science disciplines.

Proposals are welcome from scholars of all ranks from across all disciplines of the Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, as are papers from the Sciences, that engage in the broadest sense with social, historical and cultural aspects of the Mediterranean language, linguistics, literature, culture, society, art, and social, economic and political history, as well as anthropology, sociology, and other related humanities and social science disciplines. Junior scholars, graduate students, contingent faculty, scholars of underrepresented communities, and those whose work engages with historiographically marginalized groups are particularly encouraged to apply.

Papers may address either specific case studies or larger historical, cultural, artistic or historiographical dynamics and apparatuses. Comparative, interdisciplinary, and methodologically innovative papers are of particular interest. Our Mediterranean world is construed as the center of the historical West, including southern Europe, the Near East and North Africa and stretching into continental Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Black Sea and Central Asia, and the Red Sea and the western Indian Ocean. While our primary laboratory is the premodern Mediterranean, we welcome proposals from across historical eras, as well papers which focus on other regions in which analogous or related processes can be observed.

Workshop Program

For the workshop program, we invite abstracts (250 words) for unpublished in-progress articles or book or dissertation chapters relating directly or tangentially to the production, distribution, cultural, economic, social history, artistic or literary representations of wine or intoxicants in the Mediterranean world.

To complete the form you will need a (provisional) title and abstract (±250 words) of your proposed presentation, a prose biographical paragraph (±250 words), and a 2-page CV (pdf).

The deadline for workshop proposals is 1 June 2025 via this form. Successful applicants will submit a 35-page (maximum) double-spaced paper-in-progress for pre-circulation by 21 August 2025.

Round-Table Conversations

For the three round-table conversations, we invite abstracts (±250 words) for position papers that respond to one of the prompts below.

The deadline for application proposals is 1 June 2025 via this form.

Round-table presenters will submit a 3-5 page “position paper” in response to their round-table prompt by 30 August 2025. Position papers are informal “op-ed” pieces with minimal scholarly apparatus.

To complete the form you will need a (provisional) title and abstract (±250 words) of your proposed presentation, a prose biographical paragraph (±250 words), and a 2-page CV (pdf).

Round-table topics
1. Production and Distribution: How did techniques of wine production develop and disseminate across the Mediterranean world? How did production, dissemination and consumption of wine and intoxicants shape Mediterranean economies and how did this intersect with specific communities and constituencies?
2. Consumption and Culture: How, why and when were wine and intoxicants consumed? What role did they have in social and cultural practices, and secular and religious rituals? What were the various manifestations of Mediterranean wine culture and how did these various over time, place and across ethno-religious communities?
3. After-Effects and Altered Perceptions: How was wine and intoxication viewed and depicted in art and across the various genres of literature (including fiction and non-fiction, prose, poetry, and scientific, moral or religious texts)? How do these depictions intersect with the with the cultural, social, religious and economic environments of the Mediterranean world? What particular dynamics and tensions did this produce?

Given that only three workshop papers can be accepted, workshop applicants are
encouraged to also apply for a round-table (using a separate form). Applicants are
welcome to indicate more than one round-table topic if appropriate for their proposal.

Other Information

This is an in-person meeting only. The workshop language is English. Participants agree to be present and actively participate in the entirety of the program.

Meals and accommodation will be provided for workshop and round-table presenters, and local ground transportation will be reimbursed. Presenters will be responsible for inter-regional or international travel.

A separate call for non-presenting participants will go out in July.

This workshop is organized by Brian A. Catlos (University of Colorado Boulder), William Granara (Harvard University), Sharon Kinoshita (University of California Santa Cruz) and Anthony Triolo (ACM). It is sponsored by The American College of the Mediterranean, together with the Mediterranean Seminar and the CU Mediterranean Studies Group.