Images by the Vineyard: Images of Addiction and Substance Users in the Media and Other Culture Sites/Sights

Abstract

This article constitutes a discovery journey into the world of drinking images, the pleasures and harms related to consuming alcoholic beverages, as well as the relationships between drinking and spirituality. These aspects are described historically and globally, over time through a series of snapshots and mini-discussions about both visual and mental images from art, classical literature and operatic music.The images are interpreted according to how they represent the drinking culture within which they were created and sustained, and how they are able to involve the spectator and the user in terms of either empathizing, accepting and including or distancing, stigmatizing and marginalizing the user.

Keywords :

• Image
• culture
• alcoholic beverages
• art
• classical literature
• opera music
• exhibition

THE AUTHORS

Allaman Allamani, M.D., Psychiatrist; Family Therapist; Researcher. He has been coordinator of the Alcohol Centre, Florence Health Agency (1993–2009); since 2009 he has been consultant to the Region of Tuscany Health Agency for research on social epidemiology and prevention policy. First non-alcoholic trustee of Italian Alcoholics Anonymous (1997–2003). He is a member of the editorial board of “Substance Use and Misuse.” Coordinator of a number of Italian projects on alcohol prevention and policies, he has co-led work package 3 of the European Commission-funded AMPHORA project. Author and co-author of many articles, editor and co-editor of a few books.

Silvia Mattiacci, PhD, is associate professor of Latin Literature and Classical Philology at University of Siena. She has published commented editions of the fragments of the poetae novelli (Rome 1982), Tiberianus (Florence 1990) and Apuleius (Metamorphoses IX, Florence 1996); she has studied Martial in connection with neoteric poetry (Pisa 2007), Phaedrus and the interaction between fable and epigram, the Latin epigram in late antiquity with particular reference to Ausonius and to the relationship between words and images. She has also published on Fulgentius the mythographer and the origins of rhythmic versification.

Notice of Correction:

Corrections have been made to the formatting of the article since its original online publication date of January 5, 2015

Notes

¹ Modern communication theorists emphasize that communication is an interactive process, as meanings in messages are created in the moment of the active interpretations of the messages. This holds a good fit with the psychologist images concept as experiences of the human senses and feelings of a “being in the world” in relation to the stimuli to which the senses are reacting. See e.g. Hulett, J. Edward. (1966) A symbolic interactionist model of human communication. AV Communication review 14(2): 203–220. (Eds note).

² It is necessary to distinguish between an active “drugs's” pharmacological actions and the “drug experience” of the user, which is the outcome of a complex, dynamic, interaction between the active chemical substance, the user and his/her experiences, knowledge, expectations, etc. and the actual site of use. Zinberg, N. E. (1984). Drug, Set, and Setting: The Basis for Controlled Intoxicant Use. New Haven: Yale University Press.

³ Goliards were wandering students and scholars during the 12th and 13th centuries, who were usually clerics but not priestly in their behaviors who were devoted to adventure and the good life, in search of wine, women and song. They wrote a variety of songs- religious as well as bawdy ones- political satires, plays and poetry and drinking songs. They were, in a sense,a protest movement expressing growing criticism against Church abuses. Editor's note.

⁴ In Greek mythology, maenads were the female followers of the wine God Dionysus (Bacchus in the Roman pantheon) Editor's note.

⁵ Augustus (63 BCE - 14 CE) was the founder of the Roman empire and was its first emperor.