AIDS Narratives: Gender and Sexuality, Fiction and Science

ISBN-13: 9780815309253 / Angielski / Twarda / 1996 / 420 str.

Steven F. Kruger

Opis

An examination of AIDS fiction revealing how AIDS discourses have shaped society's understanding of the disease. Kruger (Queens College, City U. of New York) analyzes scientific texts, arguing that their language has made AIDS an exclusively gendered, gay disease. From this vantage point, he critica

Recenzje

"In this comprehensive and provocative work, Dr. Kruger first looks at how the scientific research community talks about AIDS, exposing a preconstructed narrative of sexist and homophobic thinking; he then explores how AIDS lives in contemporary novels, focusing on the power of the writer's imagination to tell another story, a story that forces us to see the limitations of our society's response to AIDS and the people that live with it. This book is marked by a passionate caring for how writers can make us think and feel anew, how their creative visions can move us away from predictable metaphors to texts that call us to action because they are complex, funny, challenging, and relentless. This book is an excellent academic study of literary texts; it is also a living engaged work that stays with the reader. We are all part of the narrative of AIDS." -- Joan Nestle, Co-founder of the Lesbian Herstory Archives, Inc.
"An important contribution to the growing field of AIDS cultural criticism. Kruger's astute analysis covers an impressive range of materials from biomedical discourse to queer fiction...stands out as a model of the new scholarship in queer studies." -- Professor David Rom n, Department of English, University of Southern California
"Kruger's book is an important contribution to public discussions of the culture of AIDS and HIV, covering a broad body of literature thathas had the unenviable task of chronicling a pandemic." -- Harvard Gay and Lesbian Review
"...superb, balanced, well-written work...It is a fine addition..." -- Choice

Spis treści

Chapter 1 Is a Virus Language?; Chapter 2 AIDS and the Battlefields of Masculinity; Chapter 3 The Narratives of AIDS; Chapter 4 Gay and Other Subjects of AIDS; Chapter 5 John Weir's The Irreversible Decline of Eddie Socket; Chapter 6 Apocalyptic Conspiracies:The “Epidemiological Narrative” of AIDS; Chapter 7 “But Then What?”: Sarah Schulman's People in Trouble; Appendix Bibliography of AIDS Literature; Works Cited; INDEX;

O autorze

Adrian ARUGER