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AIDS, Politics and Culture (GWS 394) Tuesday/Thursday 11:00-12:15 BSB 185 Fall 2004
Professor: Jennifer Brier Email: jbrier@uic.edu Office: Gender and Women’s Studies, UH 1822 Office Phone: (312) 413-2458 Office Hours: Tuesday and Thursday, 3:30pm to 4:30pm, and by appointment
Welcome to AIDS, Politics and Culture. This course is designed to introduce you to the study of AIDS as a medical, social, political and cultural construction. Using texts from a wide range of disciplines we will explore the historical epidemiology of AIDS, the politics of the state’s response to AIDS as well as how activists across the world have addressed the state’s (in)action, and the evolving representations of AIDS in the media. Over the course of the semester we will question how, and to what extent, ideas about AIDS have changed over the last two and half decades. We will consider these questions, in part, by focusing our attention on several geographic locations from the United States, to Haiti, to Brazil, to Southern Africa to concretize what it means to talk about AIDS as a global pandemic.
Required TextsAll texts are available at the UIC Bookstore. If you cannot purchase the books, please let me know as soon as possible so we can make alternative arrangements.
• Richard Berkowitz, Stayin’ Alive (Westview, 2003) • Paula Treichler, How to Have Theory in an Epidemic (Duke UP, 1999) • Cathy Cohen, The Boundaries of Blackness (U Chicago, 1999) • Paul Farmer, Infections and Inequalities (U Chicago, 1999) • Articles on the schedule marked with (BB) are available on blackboard. You should arrange to print out the articles and bring them to class.
Course Mechanics
Students with disabilities who require accommodations for access and participation in this course must be registered with the Office of Disability Services (ODS). Writing Assignments: You will write three papers in this class.
The first paper will require you to critically analyze a popular magazine or newspaper from the early 1980s and one from the present. You should consider if and how media representations of AIDS have changed over the last twenty years. You will learn the research skills needed for this paper on our first visit to the library. The paper should be 5-7 pages and will be worth 20% of your final grade.
For the second paper you will critically engage two days worth of reading. We will talk more about the paper in October. The paper should be 5-7 pages and will be worth 20% of your final grade.
The final assignment has two parts, leading class discussion with several of your fellow classmates, and writing your own short research paper. You will be broken into three groups, with each group investigating an AIDS activist group or AIDS Service Organization chosen from the list below. As part of your research, you will need to select two articles or book chapters to assign as reading on the day you lead class discussion. We will talk more about this assignment during our second trip to the library. The presentation/paper will be worth 40% of your final grade.
Organization/Activist List
ACT UP AIDS Foundation of Chicago AMFAR Gay Men’s Health Crisis Global AIDS Fund Health Gap Coalition Housing Works Lesbian AIDS Project Minority Task Force on AIDS Partners in Health Test Positive Aware Network (TPAN) UNAIDS
I will consider other organizations or activist groups, but you must present me with convincing reasons to do so.
Academic Integrity: Please read the University policy on academic integrity at www.uic.edu/depts/sja/integrit.htm. If you have any questions about this policy or about proper citations, please see me or ask me about it during class time. SCHEDULE
August 24 Introductions
August 26 Before AIDSRichard Berkowitz, “Last Man Standing” and “Coming Out in the ‘70s” Randy Shilts, And the Band Played On (Penguin, 1987), selections (BB) Guest lecture from Catherine Batza, Graduate Student in History at UIC
August 31 Naming AIDS Berkowitz, “The Big Bang” and “Stop the World” Steven Epstein, “The Nature of a New Threat” and “HIV and the Consolidation of Certainty,” from Impure Science (U. of California Press, 1996) (BB)
September 2 Producing the Invisible I: Sexuality, Race and the Early Politics of AIDSPaula Treichler, “AIDS, Homophobia, and Biomedical Discourse” Cathy Cohen, “Invisible to the Centers for Disease Control”
September 7 Producing the Invisible II: Gender and the Early Politics of AIDS Treichler, “The Burdens of History” Paul Farmer, “Invisible Women”
September 9 Representation of the Developing World Treichler, “AIDS and HIV Infection in the Third World” Farmer, “Preface” and “The Exotic and the Mundane”
September 14 “African AIDS”: A Case Study in Contextualizing Epidemiology“AIDS in Africa: Regional Perspectives,” from Ezekiel Kalipeni, et. al., eds., HIV and AIDS in Africa: Beyond Epidemiology(Blackwell, 2003) (BB)
September 16 NO CLASS, ROSH HASHANAH
September 20 Attend Julie Livingston’s talk, “Motherhood, Aging, and Disability: Global Agendas Meet Local Realities in Post-Colonial Botswana” at the Institute for the Humanities, 2-4pm
September 21 Library Visit I Class will meet at Daley Library with reference librarian Krystal Lewis
September 23 The Making of Safe(r) Sex Berkowitz, “The Hustler,” “Confessions,” and “How to Have Sex in an Epidemic” Cohen, “Enter AIDS”
September 28 Mediated Images ICohen, “All the Black People Fit to Print,” “Conspiracies and Controversies,” and “Unsuspecting Women”
September 30 Mediated Images IITreichler, “Seduced and Terrorized”
Paper on popular journal article due at the beginning of class.
October 4 Attend Laura Briggs’ talk, “Sex, Reproduction, and U.S. Foreign Policy: From Abu Ghraib to Transnational Adoption” at the Institute for the Humanities, 2-4pm
October 5 The Emergence of AIDS Service: Is AIDS Big Business?Cindy Patton, “The AIDS Service Industry,” from Inventing AIDS (Routledge, 1990) (BB) Juana María Rodríguez, “Activism and Identity,” from Queer Latinidad (NYU Press, 2003) (BB)
October 7 AIDS Service in African American CommunitiesCohen, “Willing to Serve” and “Women, Children, and Funding”
October 12 Library Visit II Class will meet at Daley Library with reference librarian Krystal Lewis
October 14 NO CLASS Please go to the library to work on research project, Krystal will be available to work with you.
October 19 AIDS and Global Economic Policy – What’s the connection?Patton, “Official Maps,” from Globalizing AIDS (Minnesota UP, 2002)(BB) Christiana Bastos, “Sponsoring Global Action,” from Global Responses to AIDS (Indiana UP, 1999) (BB)
Be sure to arrange a meeting with me to discuss your group presentations. We must talk before you submit your readings.
October 21 AIDS and Poverty in America Jeff Maskovsky, “The Other War at Home,” Urban Anthropology, v. 30, no. 2/3 (2001)(BB) Rodrick Wallace, “A Synergism of Plagues,” Environmental Research, v. 47 (1988) (BB)
October 26 Revisiting CausationFarmer, “Culture, Poverty, and HIV Transmission,” “Miracles and Misery,” and “Sending Sickness.”
Submit readings for class sessions. October 28 Gender, AIDS and Activism: The US Case Treichler, “Beyond Cosmo” Patton and Kelly, Making It: A Woman’s Guide to Sex in the Age of AIDS (Firebrand, 1988) (BB) View: “AIDS: Doctors, Liars, and Women”
November 2 Gender, AIDS and Activism: The Southern African Case I All of these essays are from HIV and AIDS in Africa (BB) Ida Susser and Zena Stein, “Culture, Sexuality and Women’s Agency in the Prevention of HIV/AIDS in Southern African” Catherine Campbell, “Migrancy, Masculine Identities, and AIDS” Oliver Phillips, “The Invisible Presence of Homosexuality”
November 4 Gender, AIDS and Activism: The Southern African Case II View: “State of Denial”
Paper due at the beginning of class
November 9 Gender, AIDS and Activism: The Brazilian CaseBastos, “Local Action: Responding to AIDS in Brazil,” from Global Responses to AIDS (BB) Vera Paiva, “Gendered Scripts and the Sexual Scene,” from Richard Parker et. al. eds, Framing the Sexual Subject (U. of California Press, 2000) (BB)
November 11 Anti-AIDS Activism Patton, “On Me, Not in Me,” Theory, Culture and Society, v. 15, no. 3-4 (1998) (BB) An article TBA
November 15 Attend Rhacel Parreñas’ talk, “The Export of Care: Gender, Migration and the Philippines,” at the Institute for the Humanities, 2-4pm
November 16 Student Lead Class I
November 18 Student Lead Class II November 23 Student Lead Class III
November 25 NO CLASS – Gobble, Gobble.
November 30 Can Theory Stop AIDS? Farmer, “The Vitality of Practice” and “The Persistent Plagues” Treichler, “How to Have Theory in an Epidemic” and “Epilogue”
December 2 Artistic ImaginationsView: “Zero Patience”Final Paper due at the beginning of class
If you have appropriate syllabi, please contact CLGH chair Karen Krahulik at Karen_Krahulik@brown.edu. |
