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A tidal wave of panic surrounded homosexuality and AIDS in the 1980s and early 1990s, the period commonly called 'The AIDS Crisis'. With the advent of antiretroviral drugs in the mid '90s, however, the meaning of an HIV diagnosis radically changed. These game-changing drugs now enable many people living with HIV to lead a healthy, regular life, but how has this dramatic shift impacted the representation of gay men and HIV in popular culture?
Positive Images is the first detailed examination of how the relationship between gay men and HIV has transformed in the past two decades. From
Queer as Folk to
Chemsex,
The Line of Beauty to
The Normal Heart, Dion Kagan examines literature, film, TV, documentaries and news coverage from across the English-speaking world to unearth the socio-cultural foundations underpinning this 'post-crisis' period. His analyses provide acute insights into the fraught legacies of the AIDS Crisis and its continued presence in the modern queer consciousness.
List of contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Series Editors' Foreword
Introduction: Crisis/Post-Crisis
1. Gay Redemption: Domestication and Disavowal in the Gay 90s
2. Positive Men Are from Mars, Negative Men Are from Venus: Sero-Melodrama in
Queer As Folk3. Crisis Re-Runs: Barebacking,
Chemsex and Post-Crisis Sex Panic
4. AIDS Heritage in T
he Line of Beauty5. AIDS Retrovisions:
Dallas Buyers Club and
The Normal HeartConclusion: Feeling Generational
Notes
Bibliography
Film and Television References
Index
About the author
Dion Kagan is an academic, editor and arts critic from Melbourne, Australia. He has lectured in gender, screen and cultural studies at the University of Melbourne and is currently researching stigma and disease at the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society, La Trobe University. Dion has a multidisciplinary background and has published widely on the history, sociality and biopolitics of HIV/AIDS.
Summary
A tidal wave of panic surrounded homosexuality and AIDS in the 1980s and early 1990s, the period commonly called 'The AIDS Crisis'. With the advent of antiretroviral drugs in the mid '90s, however, the meaning of an HIV diagnosis radically changed. These game-changing drugs now enable many people living with HIV to lead a healthy, regular life, but how has this dramatic shift impacted the representation of gay men and HIV in popular culture?
Positive Images is the first detailed examination of how the relationship between gay men and HIV has transformed in the past two decades. From Queer as Folk to Chemsex, The Line of Beauty to The Normal Heart, Dion Kagan examines literature, film, TV, documentaries and news coverage from across the English-speaking world to unearth the socio-cultural foundations underpinning this 'post-crisis' period. His analyses provide acute insights into the fraught legacies of the AIDS Crisis and its continued presence in the modern queer consciousness.
