AIDS Postmemory in the 21st Century: Rethinking the HIV Crisis Today

Toni R. Juncosa

Abstract


In this paper, I contend that both HIV and AIDS must continue to be seen as crises if the pandemic is ever to be brought to an end. I start by exploring the presence of death imagery in Danez Smith’s poetry in light of Marianne Hirsch (2008) and Samuel O’Donoghue’s (2018) reflections on postmemory, arguing that AIDS haunts the experience of HIV in Smith’s work in the form of postmemory. Based on this idea, I engage with the ongoing debate about the "post-crisis era" (Kagan, 2018; Rofes, 1998), and critical “post-AIDS discourse” (Basu et al.,
2022; Walker, 2020) to claim that postmemory constitutes one of the multiple expressions of the “network of crises” which AIDS and HIV continue to be in the 21st century (Cheng et al., 2020).


Keywords


Danez Smith; Postmemory; HIV; AIDS; Crisis; US Poetry

Full Text:

PDF

References


Basu, A., Spieldenner, A. R., & Dillon. P. J. (2022). Post-AIDS Discourse in Health Communication: Sociocultural Interpretations. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003000945

Beiner, G. (2015). Probing the Boundaries of Irish Memory: from Postmemory to Prememory and Back. Irish Historical Studies, 39(154) 296–307. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021121400019106

Berlant, L. (2011). Cruel Optimism. Duke. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822394716

Castiglia, C., & Reed, C. (2011). If Memory Serves: Gay Men, AIDS, and the Promise of a Queer Past. University of Minnesota Press. https://doi.org/10.5749/minnesota/9780816676101.001.0001

CDC. (1986). Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) Among Blacks and Hispanics--United States. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), 35(42), 655–658. Retrieved March 11, 2023, from https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00000810.htm

CDC. (1997, September 19). Update: Trends in AIDS Incidence – United States, 1996. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. 46(37), 861–867.

CDC. (2016a). CDC Fact Sheet. Today’s HIV/A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention IDS Epidemic. Retrieved May 24, 2023, from https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/49292

CDC. (2016b). Oral Sex and HIV Risk Fact Sheet. Retrieved October 12, 2022, from https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/pdf/risk/cdc-hiv-oral-sex-fact-sheet.pdf

CDC. (2023). HIV Incidence. https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/statistics/0verview/in-us/incidence. html#print

Cheng, J., Juhasz, A., & Shahani, N. (2020). AIDS and the Distribution of Crises. Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781478009269

Cohen, J. (2014, September 25). How Did the ‘Berlin Patient’ Rid Himself of HIV? Science. https://www.science.org/content/article/how-did-berlin-patient-rid-himself-hiv

Cvetkovich, A. (2003). An Archive of Feelings: Trauma, Sexuality, and Lesbian Public Cultures. Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv113139r

Dowsett, G. W., Parker, R., & Aggleton, P. (2022). Revisiting ‘Post-AIDS’: Understanding Gay Community Responses to HIV Then and Now. In A. Basu, A. R. Spieldenner, & P. J. Dillon, Post-AIDS Discourse in Health Communication: Sociocultural Interpretations (pp. 15–30). Routledge.

Edelman, L. (1989). The Plague of Discourse: Politics, Literary Theory, and AIDS. South Atlantic Quarterly, 88(4), 301–307. https://doi.org/10.1215/00382876-88-1-301

Fitzgerald, E., Elspeth, S., Hickey, D., Biko, C., & Tobin, H. J. (2015). Meaningful Work: Transgender Experiences in the Sex Trade. https://transequality.org/sites/default/files/Meaningful%20Work-Full%20Report_FINAL_3.pdf

Gonzalez, O. R. (2012). Review of “Unlimited Intimacies: Reflections on the Subculture of Barebacking”, by Tim Dean. Cultural Critique, 81, 125–132. https://doi.org/10.1353/cul.2012.0018

Highleyman, L. (2022). Barcelona Woman Controls HIV for Over 15 Years Without Treatment. aidsmap. NAM. 1 Aug. 2022. https://www.aidsmap.com/news/aug-2022/barcelona-womancontrols-hiv-over-15-years-without-treatment

Hirsch, M. (2008). The Generation of Postmemory. Poetics Today, 29(1), 103–128. https://doi.org/10.1215/03335372-2007-019

Juncosa, T. R. (2021). ‘My Proof of Life’: HIV as Reification of Black Metaphysics in Danez Smith’s Homie. 452ºF: revista de teoría de la literatura y literatura comparada, 25, 145–160. https://doi.org/10.1344/452f.2021.25.8

Kagan, D. (2018). Positive Images: Gay Men and HIV/AIDS in the Culture of “Post-Crisis”. I. B. Tauris. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350987593

Koselleck, R. (2006). Crisis (Michaela R. Richter, Trans.). Journal of the History of Ideas, 67(2), 357–400. https://doi.org/10.1353/jhi.2006.0013

Mandavilli, A. (2020, March 9)). The ‘London Patient,’ Cured of H.I.V., Reveals His Identity. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/09/health/hiv-aids-london-patientcastillejo.

html

O’Donoghue, S. (2018, June 26). Postmemory as Trauma? Some Theoretical Problems and Their Consequences for Contemporary Literary Criticism. Politika. https://www.politika.io/en/notice/postmemory-as-trauma-some-theoretical-problems-and-their-consequences-for-contemporary

Online Etymology Dictionary. Retrieved January 17, 2023, from https://www.etymonline.com

Osmundson, J. (2022). Virology: Essays for the Living, the Dead, and the Small Things in Between. Norton.

Rofes, E. (1998). Dry Bones Breathe: Gay Men Creating Post-AIDS Identities and Cultures. Harrington Park Press.

Schulman, S. (2012). The Gentrification of the Mind: Witness to a Lost Imagination. University of California Press. https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520952331

Smith, D. (2017). Don’t Call Us Dead. Chatto & Windus.

Smith, D. (2020). Homie. Chatto & Windus.

Stevens, R. C., & Hull, S. J. (2013). The Colour of AIDS: an Analysis of Newspaper Coverage of HIV/AIDS in the United States from 1992–2007. Critical Arts: South-North Cultural and Media Studies, 27(3), 352–369. https://doi.org/10.1080/02560046.2013.800668

UNAIDS. (2023). Fact Sheet 2022. Retrieved March 14, 2023, from https://www.unaids.org/en/resources/fact-sheet

Walker, L. (2020). Problematizing the Discourse of ‘Post-AIDS’. Journal of Medical Humanities, 41, 95–105. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10912-017-9433-9

Watney, S. (1987). Policing Desire: Pornography, AIDS and the Media. Methuen.

Wing, E. J. (2016). HIV and Aging. Journal of Infectious Diseases, 53, 61–68. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijid.2016.10.004




DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17951/lsmll.2024.48.2.35-47
Date of publication: 2024-07-10 11:05:28
Date of submission: 2023-11-08 00:25:37


Statistics


Total abstract view - 534
Downloads (from 2020-06-17) - PDF - 163

Indicators



Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Copyright (c) 2024 Toni R. Juncosa

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.