Nina S. Studer is a historian and Arabist with a focus on gender and the history of psychiatry and medicine in the colonial Maghreb. She is currently an associate researcher, part of Dr. Francesca Arena's SNSF project investigating the medical history of wet dreams from the 18th century to today, at the Institut Éthique Histoire Humanités at the University of Geneva. Since 2014, she has conducted research into medical and psychiatric descriptions of drinking habits in the colonial Maghreb, and written a series of articles and chapters on wine, coffee, tea, champagne, soft drinks and more. Her main focus is, however, on the fascinating and scandalous history of absinthe. Her book “The Hour of Absinthe: A Cultural History of France’s Most Notorious Drink” will be published in September 2024 by McGill-Queen's University Press as part of their "Intoxicating Histories" series.
Dr. Nina Studer talks about the absinthe craze and peril in France from the 1830s to its ban in 1915.