For Immediate Release Contact:
Gloria Gottschalk, (212) 229-5667, ext. 239

The three-day conference has been organized by Arien Mack, who in addition to editing Social Research, is Alfred J. Marrow Professor Psychology at New School University’s Graduate Faculty. The keynote address will be given by Dr. Jonathan Miller, the English theater director, actor, writer, and physician. The six sessions, involving the viewpoints of leading scholars, medical and legal experts, will include the following topics: States of Consciousness, Alterations of Consciousness: Drug Ways, Alterations of Consciousness: Other Ways, Legal and Economic Aspects, and Alternatives to the War on Drugs: Rational Routes to Harm Reduction.

The conference will be held at New School University’s Tishman Auditorium, 66 West 12^th Street, Manhattan. Admission is $75 (before January 5, 2001); $100 thereafter. Full-time students free with valid ID. For a complete schedule or to reserve tickets, call (212) 229-2488 or visit the conference website at: www.newschool.edu/centers/socres/altered.

"Among the many questions that will be addressed at the conference, " remarked Arien Mack, "there is one in particular that is central to a more nuanced understanding of the tangled issues raised by mind-altering drug use: the question of what distinguishes mind-altering activities that are valued (for example, as parts of religious rituals) from those that are deemed dangerous and consequently condemned and outlawed. To this end, we hope to make clear to the audience, through presentations that are accessible to the layman, that in many cases the neurophysiological effects of mind-altering substances may be virtually identical to the effects produced by various behavioral practices or placebos.

Professor Mark continued, " This seems important because understanding this point inevitably begins to raise doubts about the reflexive distinctions this society makes between one kind of inducing agent and another, which in turn should foster new ways of thinking — which is our goal."

This past fall, Social Research organized a major conference on the issue of Privacy. Altered States of Consciousness will be the eighth Social Research conference series.

The conference has been funded by grants from the Robert Wood Johnson and Russell Sage Foundations.

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The Social Research conference series at New School University was launched in 1988 by Arien Mack with the aim of enhancing public understanding of critical and contested issues by exploring those issues in their broad historical and cultural contexts. The conferences are dedicated to the maxim that "to forget history is to risk repeating it." Rather than simply confronting these difficult issues directly, Social Research conferences present speakers from a wide range of disciplines with many different perspectives and kinds of expertise, who bring the relevant scholarship in their fields to bear on the contemporary discussions. Historians, political scientists, and art historians routinely participate alongside legal theorists, policymakers, and computer scientists. We believe that this approach is a more effective way to illuminate the issues and influence the current public debate.

The seven previous conferences in this series have addressed in turn the following contemporary issues: the AIDS epidemic, with the conference In Time of Plague; homelessness and exile, with Home: A Place in the World; the urgenicies and complexities of rescue, with Rescue: The Paradoxes of Virtue; the relationship between humans and other animals, with In the Company of Animals; the implications of the new communications technologies, with Technology and the Rest of Culture; the problems of hunger and sustainable agriculture, with Food: Nature and Culture; and Privacy.