(note: consistently updated version here)
AIDS Activism Pinterest Board
Books/Journals – if you do not have access through your local library, I suggest interlibrary loan if it is available.
(PDF) Douglas Crimp Cultural Analysis/Cultural Activism (JSTOR link here)
Anything by Greg Bordowicz: Just a fantastic nonfiction writer in general. The AIDS Crisis is Ridiculous and Other Writings (buy here) is an incredibly well written book.
AIDS and Its Metaphors by Susan Sontag
Moving Politics:Emotion and ACT-UP’s Fight Against AIDS. by Deborah Gould
How to Have Theory in an Epidemic by Paula Treichler
Mobilizing New York: AIDS, Antipoverty, and Feminist Activism Carroll
Demo Graphics. Douglas Crimp (really any you can’t go wrong with Douglas Crimp)
The AIDS Generation: Stories of Survival and Resistance.
Avital Ronell, “A Note on the Failure of Man’s Custodianship (AIDS Update)
See Works Cited for more.
Academic Reading: Fear of A Queer Planet. Edited by Michael Warner (download here or buy here) Specifically see the essays by Patton and by Freeman and Berlant.
Primary Source: Randy Shilts And the Band Played On. Primary resource with (obviously) outdated information (for example, the Patient Zero myth). But important historical artifact.
Biography and Memoir:
David Wojnarowicz
- Fire in the Belly:The Life and Times of David Wojnarowicz by Cynthia Carr (buy here)
- Close to the Knives: A Memoir of Disintegration by David Wojnarowicz (buy here)
- Brief interview with Cynthia Carr
- On censoring Wojnarowicz
Robert Mapplethorpe:The Archive (buy here) (Extra Reading: Patti Smith’s Just Kids).
We Must Love One Another or Die: The Life and Legacies of Larry Kramer
Sean Strub Body Counts:A Memoir of Politics, Sex, AIDS, and Survival (buy here)
Documentary
United in Anger:A History of ACT-UP (if you are able, please buy here or rent here) If there is one documentary you watch on AIDS activism, this is the one.
We Were Here On Netflix. PBS clip here.
The Age of AIDS (part 1) (note: I haven’t seen this yet. Tell me if it is any good!)
Larry Kramer:In Love and Anger (at HBO) (YouTube)
30 Years from Here: A Personal History of NYC & HIV-AIDS
HIV and Me by Stephen Fry (part 2 here)
1993 PBS “Angels in America” Documentary (have not seen this yet)
The History of HIV and Current Epidemic by University of California (also: HIV: A Primer)
Vito: documentary on Vito Russo on Netflix. (bonus: adaptation of Russo’s book on queer portrayals in classic film, The Celluloid Closet)
Bonus: not AIDS related, but The Life and Times of Harvey Milk is on Hulu. It does a good job explaining the political climate in San Francisco following Milk’s murder and establishing the milieu from which the San Francisco AIDS crisis emerged.
Reluctantly recced: How to Survive a Plague. Well-done documentary that provides a great deal of historical background and information, but over-emphasizes the role of white men in ACT-UP (though interestingly enough, not Kramer). I.e., aggrandizes Peter Staley.
History Archives
John Cohen AIDS Research Collection at the University of Michigan
Retrospective in Pictures:A Pictorial Timeline of the HIV/AIDS Pandemic
Historical Footage:Primary Sources
Kissing Doesn’t Kill (PSA by Gran Fury)
Fire in My Belly by David Wojnarowicz
Public Information Film – AIDS 1986
Bordowicz’s Video Data Bank.
Reagan
Reagan Administration’s Chilling Response to the AIDS epidemic (video)
The Guardian: The First Lady Who Looked Away
More on the Reagans laughing at AIDS from ACT-UP’s Michael Bronski
Accurate Tweet in response to Hilary Clinton on Nancy Reagan
Nancy Reagan’s HIV/AIDS Legacy
Podcasts:
ACT-UP Oral History: Free Podcast by The New York Public Library
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (archive)
Radiolab: Patient Zero NOTE:the Patient Zero myth has been debunked. I have not listened to this episode yet so I do not know how Radiolab handles it.
Other
Selections from Ann Cvetkovich’s An Archive of Feelings on lesbians in ACT-UP
Sarah Shulman interviews Larry Kramer at ACT-UP Oral History Project
Larry Kramer at democracynow.org in 2007
Center for Disease Control:Three Decades of the Commitment to the Fight Against AIDS video
Fiction:
Angels in America by Tony Kushner
- Rent HBO adaptation here
- If you have a Scribd subscription, read here
- Teachers’s Resource Packet with Background Information
The Normal Heart by Larry Kramer. Good film adaptation by HBO. Clip here.
Sarah Shulman People in Trouble (buy here) Scribd here note: much of Rent was plagiarized from Shulman which is but one reason it is not on this list. Further reading: Shulman’s Stagestruck: Theater, AIDS, and the Marketing of Gay America (buy here)
Carol Rifka Brunt Tell the Wolves I’m Coming Home
Vital Signs: Essential AIDS Fiction ed. Richard Canning
Larry Kramer
- Faggot note: published in 1978. Pre-AIDS, but classic Kramer.
Michael Cunningham: The Hours (film adaptation: rent)
Photo credit: Gran Fury, anonymous.
