Coffee & Cannabis | Casey Lurtz & Lina Britto

E326 | Commodities, their circulation, and their consumption have long been favorite topics of cultural and economic historians alike. In this episode, we build on the historiography of commodities by studying further the social and political context of two particular commodities: coffee and marijuana. Our guests, Casey Lurtz and Lina Britto, have each studied these commodities in their Latin American contexts, and following a global discussion of coffee and marijuana with some focus on the Middle East, we talk to each of these scholars about their respective research projects. We examine how the arrival of coffee impacted local political economies in Mexico, and we explore how the history of marijuana as a "drug" has had political consequences for modern Latin American countries. We conclude with a roundtable discussion on the history of commodities like coffee and marijuana and what they tell us about the changing cultural context surrounding both these items today. More at http://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2017/07/coffee-marijuana.html Lina Britto is assistant professor of History at Northwestern University. Her research explores the origins of the U.S.-Colombia drug connection, while her teaching focuses on modern Latin America, and processes of nation-state formation, popular culture, and violence. Casey Lurtz is an Academy Scholar at the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies, was previously the Newcomen Fellow at the Harvard Business School, and will be joining the history department at Johns Hopkins University in the fall as an assistant professor. Her research examines globalization from the perspective of rural Latin America. Chris Gratien holds a Ph.D. from Georgetown University's Department of History and is currently an Academy Scholar at the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies. His research focuses on the social and environmental history of the Ottoman Empire and the modern Middle East. He is currently preparing a monograph about the environmental history of the Cilicia region from the 1850s until the 1950s. CREDITS Episode No. 326 Release Date: 20 July 2017 Recording Location: Harvard University Audio editing by Chris Gratien Music: from Excavated Shellac- Hermanos Hernández – Eugenia; Luna y Delgado – Sal A Tus Puertas; Nicandro Castillo con sus Huastecos – El Llorar; from archive.org - Katibim (Uskudar'a Gider iken) - Safiye Ayla Special thanks to Kara Günes for permission to use the composition "Istanbul" Images and bibliography courtesy of Casey Lurtz and Lina Britto available at http://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2017/07/coffee-marijuana.html