Queerness and/as Illness Aids Narratives and Metaphors in Anglophone Media and Cultures

The purpose of this interdisciplinary tutorial is to reconsider and contemplate cultural heritages of the AIDS-crisis in Anglophone literatures and cultures, foreshadow Aids-anxieties, Aids-metaphors and Aids-traumata that circulate through (queer) cultural artefacts of the 1980—1990’s, and define the textual interrelation between queerness, otherness, and illness. Moreover, during the tutorial we will see and analyze how the memories of Aids and its victims are preserved today by commemorative work of activists, relatives, and peers in different media. Participants are welcome to share their ideas on a cultural, literary or a media artefact dealing with AIDS and/ or its legacies, explicitly or implicitly, as a material for one of the classes. One of the classes will be organized as a walk to the Frankfurt Aids-memorial with an input on HIV-epidemic in the city. The closing class will be dedicated to the means of safer sex & HIV-prevention with Q&A on the topic. The colloquium is open for futher impulses and suggestions by co-students. 

Participants can expect a discourse on the cultural history of AIDS and a close-reading engagement with artefacts that address the subject in literary or media form. The sessions will be structured but flexible within that framework, and there will also be some sessions with topics of free choice. The tutorial will be taught in English, partly in order to make participation more accessible and with fewer barriers.

Tutor:in:          Ilia Skrigan
Kontakt:          eliaskrigan [at] posteo.de (eliaskrigan[at]posteo[dot]de)