AIDS in the Mind of America
Author: Dennis Altman
Publisher: Doubleday
Published: 1986
Total Pages: 248
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKTraces the history of the epidemic and examines its social, political, and psychological impact on society.
Posts
AIDS and American Apocalypticism
Author: Thomas Lawrence Long
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Published: 2012-02-01
Total Pages: 254
ISBN-13: 079148467X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKSince public discourse about AIDS began in 1981, it has characterized AIDS as an apocalyptic plague: a punishment for sin and a sign of the end of the world. Christian fundamentalists had already configured the gay male population most visibly affected by AIDS as apocalyptic signifiers or signs of the "end times." Their discourse grew out of a centuries-old American apocalypticism that included images of crisis, destruction, and ultimate renewal. In this book, Thomas L. Long examines the ways in which gay and AIDS activists, artists, writers, scientists, and journalists appropriated this apocalyptic rhetoric in order to mobilize attention to the medical crisis, prevent the spread of the disease, and treat the HIV infected. Using the analytical tools of literary analysis, cultural studies, performance theory, and social semiotics, AIDS and American Apocalypticism examines many kinds of discourse, including fiction, drama, performance art, demonstration graphics and brochures, biomedical publications, and journalism and shows that, while initially useful, the effects of apocalyptic rhetoric in the long term are dangerous. Among the important figures in AIDS activism and the arts discussed are David Drake, Tim Miller, Sarah Schulman, and Tony Kushner, as well as the organizations ACT UP and Lesbian Avengers.
The AIDS Generation
Author: Perry N. Halkitis
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2013-10-15
Total Pages: 256
ISBN-13: 0199352461
DOWNLOAD EBOOKFor young gay men who came of age in the United States in the 1980s, the HIV/AIDS epidemic was a formative experience in fear, hardship, and loss. Those who were diagnosed before 1996 suffered an exceptionally high rate of mortality, and the survivors -- both the infected individuals and those close to them -- today constitute a "bravest generation" in American history. The AIDS Generation: Stories of Survival and Resilience examines the strategies for survival and coping employed by these HIV-positive gay men, who together constitute the first generation of long-term survivors of the disease. Through interviews conducted by the author, it narrates the stories of gay men who have survived since the early days of the epidemic; documents and delineates the strategies and behaviors enacted by men of this generation to survive it; and examines the extent to which these approaches to survival inform and are informed by the broad body of literature on resilience and health. The stories and strategies detailed here, all used to combat the profound physical, emotional, and social challenges faced by those in the crosshairs of the AIDS epidemic, provide a gateway for understanding how individuals cope with chronic and life-threatening diseases. Halkitis takes readers on a journey of first-hand data collection (the interviews themselves), the popular culture representations of these phenomena, and his own experiences as one of the men of the AIDS generation. This riveting account will be of interest to health practitioners and historians throughout the clinical and social sciences -- or to anyone with an interest in this important chapter in social history. Cover photo courtesy of Fire Island Pines Historical Preservation Society.
The Secret Epidemic
Author: Jacob Levenson
Publisher: Anchor
Published: 2005-02-08
Total Pages: 322
ISBN-13: 0385722346
DOWNLOAD EBOOKHalf the people in the United States who are diagnosed with HIV are now African American. Through the eyes of those on the front lines of the crisis, journalist Jacob Levenson tells a story of race and public health that spans fifty years and reveals how AIDS has become one of the leading killers of young black men and women. Medical researcher Mindy Fullilove investigates the epidemic’s links to crack cocaine, the Bronx fires, and national health policy. Desiree Rushing must reconcile her crack addiction and HIV infection with the fate of her city, family, and the black church. David deShazo, a white AIDS worker in Alabama, fights to prevent the American South from becoming the epidemic’s new epicenter. And Mario Cooper, a gay, infected son of the black elite confronts the boundaries of American race politics in Washington, D.C. Seamlessly interweaving personal stories with national policy, Levenson indelibly captures this devastating epidemic and illuminates its potential to expand our understanding of race in America.
What If Everything You Thought You Knew about AIDS Was Wrong?
Author: Christine Maggiore
Publisher: American Foundation for AIDS Alternatives
Published: 2006-09
Total Pages: 0
ISBN-13: 9780967415321
DOWNLOAD EBOOKA simple and authoritative challenge to the conventional wisdom about AIDS, this newly revised book probes widely held assumptions about the risks, tests, and treatments associated with this controversial disease. The ideas of the general public—that everyone is at risk, that AIDS is widespread, that HIV is proven to cause AIDS, and that drug treatments or vaccines offer the only hope to resolve health problems associated with AIDS—are refuted, and new information is presented on AIDS in Africa and recent research on the effects of AZT, protease inhibitors, and combo cocktails. A recommended reading list and website directory supply tools for further study, and first-person accounts from naturally healthy HIV-positive men, women, and children give the facts a human face.
And The Band Played on
Author: Randy Shilts
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2000-04-09
Total Pages: 666
ISBN-13: 9780312241353
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAn investigative account of the medical, sexual, and scientific questions surrounding the spread of AIDS across the country.
The Social Impact of AIDS in the United States
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
Published: 1993-02-01
Total Pages: 337
ISBN-13: 0309046289
DOWNLOAD EBOOKEurope's "Black Death" contributed to the rise of nation states, mercantile economies, and even the Reformation. Will the AIDS epidemic have similar dramatic effects on the social and political landscape of the twenty-first century? This readable volume looks at the impact of AIDS since its emergence and suggests its effects in the next decade, when a million or more Americans will likely die of the disease. The Social Impact of AIDS in the United States addresses some of the most sensitive and controversial issues in the public debate over AIDS. This landmark book explores how AIDS has affected fundamental policies and practices in our major institutions, examining: How America's major religious organizations have dealt with sometimes conflicting values: the imperative of care for the sick versus traditional views of homosexuality and drug use. Hotly debated public health measures, such as HIV antibody testing and screening, tracing of sexual contacts, and quarantine. The potential risk of HIV infection to and from health care workers. How AIDS activists have brought about major change in the way new drugs are brought to the marketplace. The impact of AIDS on community-based organizations, from volunteers caring for individuals to the highly political ACT-UP organization. Coping with HIV infection in prisons. Two case studies shed light on HIV and the family relationship. One reports on some efforts to gain legal recognition for nonmarital relationships, and the other examines foster care programs for newborns with the HIV virus. A case study of New York City details how selected institutions interact to give what may be a picture of AIDS in the future. This clear and comprehensive presentation will be of interest to anyone concerned about AIDS and its impact on the country: health professionals, sociologists, psychologists, advocates for at-risk populations, and interested individuals.
My Own Country
Author: Abraham Verghese
Publisher: BookRags
Published: 1998
Total Pages: 42
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKInventing the AIDS Virus
Author: Peter H. Duesberg
Publisher: Regnery Publishing
Published: 1998-05-01
Total Pages: 740
ISBN-13: 9780895263995
DOWNLOAD EBOOKInvestigates the political and financial forces that have shaped AIDS research, including the growing dissension within scientific ranks, the power politics among virologists, and other controversial issues
Before AIDS
Author: Katie Batza
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Published: 2018-02-02
Total Pages: 191
ISBN-13: 0812294998
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe AIDS crisis of the 1980s looms large in recent histories of sexuality, medicine, and politics, and justly so—an unknown virus without a cure ravages an already persecuted minority, medical professionals are unprepared and sometimes unwilling to care for the sick, and a national health bureaucracy is slow to invest resources in finding a cure. Yet this widely accepted narrative, while accurate, creates the impression that the gay community lacked any capacity to address AIDS. In fact, as Katie Batza demonstrates in this path-breaking book, there was already a well-developed network of gay-health clinics in American cities when the epidemic struck, and these clinics served as the first responders to the disease. Before AIDS explores this heretofore unrecognized story, chronicling the development of a national gay health network by highlighting the origins of longstanding gay health institutions in Boston, Chicago, and Los Angeles, placing them in a larger political context, and following them into the first five years of the AIDS crisis. Like many other minority communities in the 1970s, gay men faced public health challenges that resulted as much from their political marginalization and social stigmatization as from any disease. Gay men mistrusted mainstream health institutions, fearing outing, ostracism, misdiagnosis, and the possibility that their sexuality itself would be treated as a medical condition. In response to these problems, a colorful cast of doctors and activists built a largely self-sufficient gay medical system that challenged, collaborated with, and educated mainstream health practitioners. Taking inspiration from rhetoric employed by the Black Panther, feminist, and anti-urban renewal movements, and putting government funding to new and often unintended uses, gay health activists of the 1970s changed the medical and political understandings of sexuality and health to reflect the new realities of their own sexual revolution.
