Tag: HIV/AIDS

  • Marginalised Histories – presenting undergraduate research on AIDs at a conference

    Marginalised Histories – presenting undergraduate research on AIDs at a conference

    In this blog post, third year student Sophie McKee reflects on her poster presentation at the recent ‘Marginalised Histories’ conference at the University of York. We were excited when the conference came up and encouraged our students to apply, working with them on their proposals and securing funding to support attendance. This was a great chance to disseminate their research, experience another aspect of the world of the academic historian, and gain value experience to enhance their employability. We were therefore delighted that Sophie was accepted to present a poster, based on her dissertation research.

    Fiona McCall has asked me to write a blog post about attending conferences. Now, I have only attended one conference, but within a few weeks that number is going to be pushing to two, so I thought now might be a time to reflect on the one that has been, and potentially psyche myself up for the one that is coming.

    I study the AIDS crisis in 1980s and 1990s America. Often that elicits lots of questions, the most popular of which at the moment is: “have you seen the film Philadelphia?” to which I sigh heavily and say yes because I am well aware of the lack of representation on HIV/AIDS in popular culture.  So, when the opportunity came up, to go to a conference on marginalised groups in history at the University of York I jumped at the chance. I am of the opinion that the AIDS crisis is one which not only is not academically investigated enough but is also not particularly known about in the UK. While the first cases of AIDS in the UK started around the early 1980s like in America, by the time that AIDS rose to national prominence in 1987 with the famous “AIDS: Don’t die of ignorance” campaign, there was a lot more information known about the disease.

    For the conference, I was invited to present a poster. My dissertation examines the social and economic diversity of activists during the AIDS crisis. Many of the leading AIDS activists were middle class, white gay men who had previously been able to live within the closet and enjoy the privilege of “passing” as straight within the deeply homophobic social environment of 1980s America. Due to the physical manifestations of the disease, AIDS often forced people out of the closet and out of these powerful structures of privilege, forcing them to be marginalised. Modern discussions of this race and class element can often be problematic. At times, some voices online have attempted to apply their own ideas of diversity to the subject, when as we know, history doesn’t have the best track record of being the most equal. The “middle class, white gay man” trope can be used negatively and incorrectly when really, the men who were part of these organisations actively subverted expectations of privilege and class and fundamentally changed the way that the American Pharmaceutical companies tested and released AIDS medication to the market. While they do not conform to modern ideas of diversity, that does not mean that anyone is allowed to negate their achievements, for this is how history can be forgotten. This is what I was going to discuss in my poster.

    One thing I loved about this experience was exactly what I have just done above. By being able to engage with my research, it gave me the opportunity to realise just how passionately felt about it. Lecturers, family, and friends would ask me what I was doing for this conference, and slowly but surely I had whittled down all this information that I had in my head to a few lines of a minute or so that I could succinctly explain what I was talking about and hearing it come out of my mouth made me feel more confident, I KNEW what I was talking about, it gave me pride in my work.

    I will tell you this with love and for free. Academic posters are boring. They don’t have to be, we are studying some of the most fascinating things in the world but my goodness we don’t half make a boring poster. My poster was NOT going to be boring it was going to be COOL and FUN and MAKE A STATEMENT. Jokes aside, I was incredibly proud of the hard work I had put into it, so yes, I made it bold and hot pink and used the same font that AIDS activists used on their posters. This is because unlike a presentation, a poster needs to be eye-catching, and on the day of the conference, many people commented on the way it looked. (All of that thanks needs to go to my friend who helped me make it. Thanks, Bren!)

     

  • Heritage and Memory: The NAMES Project Quilt

    Heritage and Memory: The NAMES Project Quilt

    Sophie Loftus, a second year History student at the University of Portsmouth, has written the following blog entry on Cleve Jones’ NAMES Project Quilt for the Introduction to Historical Research module. Sophie discusses how the quilt acts as an important memorial to the people who lost their lives to AIDS, while at the same time challenging social and cultural understandings of the disease. The module is co-ordinated by Dr Maria Cannon, Lecturer in Early Modern History at Portsmouth.

    In 1989, activist Cleve Jones stood in front of the White House with a message. Jones stated: ‘We bring a quilt. We hope it will help people to remember. We hope it will teach our leaders to act.’ [1] In that year, with limited response or recognition from its government, the death toll from AIDS in the United States of America – not simply homosexual men, but also heterosexual women, children and men – already stood at almost 90,000. Some three years earlier, in 1986, Jones realised that the dead in San Francisco from HIV/AIDS had already reached 1000 people. At the annual march, held in honour of Harvey Milk on the anniversary of his assassination, Jones asked members of the march to put the names of those lost on placards as a form of remembrance. These were then hung on the side of the old federal building. The effect reminded Jones of a quilt, something familial, cosy, handed down through generations for warmth and memory. [2] Jones wanted to create a memorial to those who had died from AIDS. In the Quilt, Jones argued that he wanted to take AIDS from ‘a “gay disease” into a shared national tragedy.’ [3] By the time the NAMES Project Quilt was displayed on the Mall in Washington DC in October 1987, as part of the National March for Lesbian and Gay rights, there were almost 2000 panels. [4] As of June 2016, The AIDS Memorial quilt makes up more than 49,000 panels, each one to commemorate someone lost to HIV/AIDS. [5] This blog looks to examine the power of collective memory and remembrance and how historians can engage with these sources to understand the power of memory not just as a source, but also as a subject. [6]

    The AIDS quilt. Image from Wikipedia.

    Arthur Marwick argued that the definition of a primary document was one which ‘by its very existence records that some event took place.’ [7] However, it must be argued that when historians are looking at other types of sources for historical importance, by simply reducing an object to little more than evidence, this can remove any form of emotive understanding of an event. [8] Sarah Barber argued that each type of source has ‘its own history which overlaps and influences those of other sources.’ [9] Here, the AIDS memorial Quilt can be seen as a useful tool in the understanding of other forms of source doing the work of memorialisation. Elaine Showalter, argues that the Quilt is seen as a ‘metaphor of national identity.’ [10] Cleve Jones, in the Quilt, attempted to represent familial bonds. By creating a memorial to the sheer size of the AIDS problem in the United States, he wanted to create a ‘way for survivors to work through their grief in a positive, creative way.’ [11] By attempting to create a positive representation of the AIDS epidemic, Jones may not have realised that he was also tapping into the ways in which scholars had begun to understand that there was a violence to the 20th century, which meant that people attempting to understand and process grief would require new ways to do this. [12]

    In the 1920s, Maurice Halbwach argued that collective memory was a ‘product of social frameworks.’ [13] He argued that history was the recording that remained once social memory faded away, and that ‘there is only one history.’ [14] However, this cannot be seen to be true; when understanding collective memory, one must understand that as a source, it is as unreliable as any other due to its potentially personal nature. The Quilt is a highly emotive piece, and some members of the LGBT community argued that it was too sanitised in its remembrance. Douglas Crimp argued that AIDS Activism hinged on how the gay community wished to be remembered, or how the crisis was intended to be seen: whether it was a disease ‘that has simply struck at this time and in this place – or as the result of gross political negligence.’ [15] Some members of the LGBT community argued that the Quilt was simply making the problem more palatable to heterosexual viewers. Thus, Marwick’s theory cannot be substantiated, collective memory cannot be seen as one history, for memory can be to some, a moment for grief and mourning, and for others a call to action and activism. [16]

    Scholars such as Bill Niven have argued that collective memory can be fruitful in understanding the way in which states and governments have attempted to encourage groups to certain views. [17] The AIDS Memorial Quilt however, is a vital example of how collective memory can challenge this. At the time of its conception, the American government were doing everything in its power to ignore AIDS. President Ronald Reagan did not mention the word AIDS on television until 1986, by which point almost 15,000 people had died of the disease. It is here that it can be seen that collective memory, or what John Bodnar has called ‘vernacular culture’ is crucial in describing the way in which groups form ways which ‘reflect how they want to remember historical events’. [18] This can be important for underrepresented groups who wish to control the narrative surrounding the memory of their own. The Quilt can be seen as what Mary Fulbrook describes as a ‘remembering agent’, or as what Jennifer Power calls a ‘counter memorial’, a piece of history which can be seen as not only a political protest, but also arguably showcasing the human side of the AIDS crisis. [19] It is not as some memorials, including those also represented at the Mall where the first showing of the quilt was presented, are normally envisioned. It is not made of stone, it moves and grows. The Quilt travels the nation and the world, in an attempt to challenge social and cultural understandings of AIDS.

    The Quilt was nominated in 1989 for a Nobel Peace Prize, and is the largest community art project in the world. [20] Cleve Jones created a memorial that grows every day, and can easily challenge historians regarding appropriate representations of remembrance. While some historians argue about the validity of collective memory as a source due to its potentially unreliable nature, the Quilt shows that counter memorials and representations of collective memory can be so important in understanding underrepresented history. They can place in the hands of historians and the world the ability to understand a past and a present which for some will never be memorialised in stone, but that people still require to grieve, to process, and to remember.

    NOTES

    [1] Cleve Jones, When We Rise: My life in the Movement. (London: Constable, 2017). 194.

    [2] Peter S. Hawkins, “Naming Names: The Art of Memory and the NAMES Project AIDS Quilt,” Critical Inquiry, Vol. 19, No. 4 (Summer, 1993). 752-779.

    [3] Hawkins, Naming. 752-779.

    [4] Ibid.

    [5] The NAMES Project, “AIDS Memorial Quilt FAQs”. https://www.aidsquilt.org/about/faqs, last accessed 11 April 2019.

    [6] Joan Tumblety, “Introduction: working with memory as source and subject” in Memory and History: Understanding Memory as Source and Subject. ed. Joan Tumblety. (London: Routledge, 2013). 1-17.

    [7] Sarah Barber and Corinna M. Peniston-Bird, “Introduction” in History beyond the text: A Students guide to approaching alternative sources. ed. Sarah Barber and Corinna M. Peniston-Bird. (London: Routledge, 2009). 1-13.

    [8] Barber, Beyond. 1-13.

    [9] Ibid.

    [10] Elaine Showalter, Sister’s choice: tradition and change in American women’s writing. (Oxford: Clarendon Press,1991). 169.

    [11] Ibid.

    [12] Tublety, Memory. 1-17.

    [13] Bill Niven and Stefan Berger, “Introduction” in Writing the History of Memory. ed Bill Niven and Stefan Berger, (London: Bloomsbury, 2014). 1-25.

    [14] Ibid.

    [15] Douglas Crimp, “Mourning and Militancy,” The MIT Press, Vol 51, (Winter 1989): 3-18.

    [16] Jennifer Power, Movement, Knowledge, Emotion: Gay activism and HIV/AIDS in Australia. (Canberra: ANU Press, 2011). 157.

    [17] Niven, Writing. 1-25.

    [18] Ibid.

    [19] Mary Fulbrook, “History Writing and ‘collective memory’” in Writing the History of Memory. ed Bill Niven and Stefan Berger, (London: Bloomsbury, 2014). 65-88; Power, Movement, 148.

    [20] The NAMES Project, “AIDS Memorial Quilt Background.” https://www.aidsquilt.org/about/medianewsroom, last accessed 11 April 2019.