An epidemic of unknowing: historicisation and forgetfulness in contemporary HIV/AIDS popular discourse

Description

This paper draws on my fifteen-year experience of teaching MA and BA modules at several British universities on AIDS-related literature, film, drama and culture, as well as bringing the subject into school classrooms (of English schoolchildren, aged 16-18), as part of university outreach programmes. It asks how the several distinct phases in Western understandings of the HIV/AIDS syndrome and epidemic – biomedically, socially and politically - have impacted on readers’ and audience members’ interpretation of the large body of literature and culture that has addressed the subject, focusing in particular upon representations in popular cultural forms such as film, television drama and theatre.

Period	11 Feb 2014
Event title	The HIV Sector: Inter/connecting Communities and Narratives Seminar
Event type	Conference