American & Canadian Literature, Social Sciences - General & Miscellaneous, Gay & Lesbian Studies, General & Miscellaneous Literary Criticism

AIDS narratives

Name: AIDS narratives
Author: Steven F. Kruger
ISBN: 9780815309253

by Steven F. Kruger

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Overview

This is the first book-length study of the rich fiction that has emerged from the AIDS crisis. Examining first the ways in which scientific discourse on AIDS has reflected ideologies of gender and sexuality-such as the construction of AIDS as a disease of gay men, part of a battle over masculinity, and thus largely excluding women with AIDS from public attention-the book considers how such discourses have shaped narrative understandings of AIDS. On the one hand, AIDS is seen as an invariably fatal weakening of an individual's bodily defenses, a depiction often used to reconfirm an identification between disease and a weak and vulnerable gayness. On the other hand, AIDS is understood in terms of an epidemic attributable to gay "immorality" or "unnaturalness." The fiction of AIDS depends upon these two narratives, with one major subgenre of AIDS novel presenting narratives of personal illness, decline, and death, and a second focusing on epidemic "spread." These novels also question the narrative structures upon which they depend, intervening particularly against the homophobia of those structures, though also sometimes reinforcing it.

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Booknews

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 critically examines the literary fiction which has "spread" from the medical discourse, including the work of John Weir and Sarah Schulman. The bibliography is exceptional in scope containing nearly 1000 entries covering AIDS discourse in anthologies, fiction, poetry, drama/performance, and nonfiction. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)