is an occasional series from The Conversation U.S. highlighting unconventional approaches to teaching.
Author
Kyle G. Volk
Professor of History, University of Montana
Title of course:
“Intoxication Nation: Alcohol in American History”
What prompted the idea for the course?
I wanted to get students excited about studying the past by learning about something that is very much a part of their own lives.
Alcohol – somewhat surprisingly to me at first – featured prominently in my own research on in the mid-19th century. As a result, I knew quite a bit about and during that period. Designing this course allowed me to broaden .
What does the course explore?
Prohibition is a must-do subject. Students expect it. But I cover several hundred years of history: from the 17th-century – as a byproduct of sugar produced by enslaved people – to the and in the 21st century.
Along the way, I’m thrilled when students get excited about details that allow them to taste a more complicated historical cocktail. For example, they learn why was crucial to the survival of colonial Virginia. The short answer: Potable water was in short supply, alcoholic drinks were far healthier, and white men – and their indentured and enslaved workforce – were busy raising tobacco. It fell to women to turn fruit into salvation.
Why is this course relevant now?
Alcohol remains a big and almost inescapable part of American society. But of late, Americans have been drinking differently – and thinking about drinking differently.
Examples abound. Alcohol producers, we learn, now face . Drinking l evels , yet interest is . The that brought some mothers together now faces .
And, of course, there’s the never-ending debate about the and . Of late, the risks seem to be .
What’s a critical lesson from the course?
Alcohol has been a highly controversial, central aspect of the American experience, shaping virtually all sectors of our society – political and constitutional, business and economic, social and cultural.
What materials does the course feature?
Historian ““: a classic social history explaining why Americans in the early 19th century drank twice as much per capita as we do today
Jack London’s alcoholic memoir, ““: a deep dive into the notorious workingmen’s saloons of the industrial era, as well as one person’s reckoning with alcoholism
““: the 1962 film starring Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick that spotlighted the place of alcoholic marriages and Alcoholics Anonymous in post-World War II America
““: a provocative early 2000s assessment of college sports and the surrounding party culture vis-a-vis declining academic standards – still relevant today
What will the course prepare students to do?
Like any history course, this one aims to develop student’s analytical, written, research and verbal skills. In lots of ways, the topic is just a tool to get students to grow their brains. But I also seek to grow students’ critical awareness of the place of alcohol in their own lives. The course has also informed students’ paths after graduation – including some who wound up working in the alcohol industry or recovery organizations.
