How to Have Theory in an Epidemic: Cultural Chronicles of AIDS / Edition 1

by Paula A Treichler

Overview

Paula A. Treichler has become a singularly important voice among the significant theorists on the AIDS crisis. Dissecting the cultural politics surrounding representations of HIV and AIDS, her work has altered the field of cultural studies by establishing medicine as a legitimate focus for cultural analysis. How to Have Theory in an Epidemic is a comprehensive collection of Treichler’s related writings, including revised and updated essays from the 1980s and 1990s that present a sustained argument about the AIDS epidemic from a uniquely knowledgeable and interdisciplinary standpoint.
“AIDS is more than an epidemic disease,” Treichler writes, “it is an epidemic of meanings.” Exploring how such meanings originate, proliferate, and take hold, her essays investigate how certain interpretations of the epidemic dominate while others are obscured. They also suggest ways to understand and choose between overlapping or competing discourses. In her coverage of roughly fifteen years of the AIDS epidemic, Treichler addresses a range of key issues, from biomedical discourse and theories of pathogenesis to the mainstream media’s depictions of the crisis in both developed and developing countries. She also examines representations of women and AIDS, treatment issues, and the role of activism in shaping the politics of the epidemic. Linking the AIDS tragedy to a uniquely broad spectrum of contemporary theory and culture, this collection concludes with an essay on the continued importance of theoretical thought for untangling the sociocultural phenomena of AIDS—and for tackling the disease itself.
With an exhaustive bibliography of critical and theoretical writings on HIV and AIDS, this long-awaited volume will be essential to all those invested in studying the course of AIDS, its devastating medical effects, and its massive impact on contemporary culture. It should become a standard text in university courses dealing with AIDS in biomedicine, sociology, anthropology, gay and lesbian studies, women’s studies, and cultural and media studies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780822323181
Publisher:	Duke University Press
Publication date:	07/19/1999
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	496
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 9.24(h) x 1.50(d)
Lexile:	1500L (what's this?)

About the Author

Paula A. Treichler is a professor at the University of Illinois, where she holds positions in the College of Medicine, the Institute of Communications Research, and the Women’s Studies Program. Her writings on AIDS have appeared in such journals as Science, ArtForum, October, Transition, and Camera Obscura. She is the coauthor of Language, Gender, and Professional Writing and A Feminist Dictionary and the coeditor of For Alma Mater,Cultural Studies, and The Visible Woman.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

A Note on the Text xiii

Prologue 1

AIDS, Homophobia, and Biomedical Discourse: An Epidemic of Signification 11

The Burdens of History: Gender and Representation in AIDS Discourse,
1981–1988 42

AIDS and HIV Infection in the Third World: A First World Chronicle 99

Seduced and Terrorized: AIDS in the Media 127

AIDS, HIV, and the Cultural Construction of Reality 149

AIDS Narratives on Television: Whose Story? 176

AIDS, Africa, and Cultural Theory 205

Beyond Cosmo: AIDS, Identity, and Inscriptions of Gender 235

How to Have Theory in an Epidemic: The Evolution of AIDS, Treatment, and Activism 278

Epilogue 315

Notes 331

Bibliography 387

Index 453

What People are Saying About This

Arthur Kleinman

Looking backward and ahead, How to Have Theory in an Epidemic is nothing short of a handbook of the meanings of AIDS: as human experience, as political reality, as public service action, and, not least of all, as moral engagement with one of the great challenges to meaning-making and unmaking in everyday life.
— Arthur Kleinman, Harvard University

Douglas Crimp

Paula Treichler's essays are certainly among the most significant written on the subject of AIDS. They are, in fact, a model of what the field of cultural studies at its best can contribute to our thinking about urgent social and political issues. This is an essential book, one that will strongly affect the way people approach the subject of AIDS in the future.
— Douglas Crimp, author of AIDS: Demo Graphics

Editorial Reviews

"Treichler’s study covers an enormous amount of material. . . . How to Have Theory in an Epidemic makes it plain that the ‘cultural evolution’ of AIDS has not yet managed to move beyond a depressingly familiar terrain of racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, and colonialism."

Signs - Sheila McManus

Looking backward and ahead, How to Have Theory in an Epidemic is nothing short of a handbook of the meanings of AIDS: as human experience, as political reality, as public service action, and, not least of all, as moral engagement with one of the great challenges to meaning-making and unmaking in everyday life.”—Dr. Arthur Kleinman, Harvard University


“Paula Treichler’s essays are certainly among the most significant written on the subject of AIDS. They are, in fact, a model of what the field of cultural studies at its best can contribute to our thinking about urgent social and political issues. This is an essential book, one that will strongly affect the way people approach the subject of AIDS in the future.”—Douglas Crimp, author of AIDS: Demo Graphics

From the Publisher

How to Have Theory in an Epidemic is one of the most thorough explorations of AIDS and its representations to be published in the last few years.

A&U Magazine - Christopher Voigt

An important new contribution to this young field. . . . Even though it is not a work of historical scholarship, How to Have Theory in an Epidemic provides much of the insight into events that we might otherwise look for in cultural histories of the HIV epidemic published years from now. The author’s scholarship spans the media, from high art to comic strips. . . . This book is an important addition to the growing literature analyzing illness—and the HIV epidemic—from social and cultural perspectives, and it will be appreciated by many.

New England Journal of Medicine - Allen L. Gifford

"How to Have Theory in an Epidemic makes available in one volume many of [Treichler’s] important essays from the last fifteen years and is invaluable for understanding the collision of discourse. . . . [It] provide[s] crucial insights into what happens when medical discourses on AIDS come into contact with other institutional discourses and other local meanings. . . . Challenging and necessary."
 

GLQ - Cris Mayo

This book is a welcome addition to any syllabus related to medicine; science; the sociology of knowledge; the media; social movements; and gender, race, class, and ethnicity. While each chapter is coherent and could stand alone, readers best experience the magnitude and power through reading the entire contents. Indeed, sociologists, anthropologists, historians, and literary and media critics, as well as epidemiologists and clinicians are fortunate to have such a blessing as Treichler’s extensive research and interpretation of AIDS/HIV.

Lisa Jean Mooren Journal of Sociology

[How to Have Theory in an Epidemic’s] significance lies in the cultural lessons that we can learn from this epidemic and increased sensititivity to cultural issues that are ‘far more pervasive and central than we are accustomed to believing.’. . . To the extent that this author demonstrates that medicine is a legitimate and practical topic in cultural studies, the influence of this work will be long-standing.

JAMA - Lisa K. Waldner

How to Have Theory in an Epidemic is a history of histories. . . . Treichler’s accomplishment is without question extremely important and useful. The book and voluminous endnotes cache a vast amount of information and documentation, while the bibliography is a boon to anyone doing serious interdisciplinary work on AIDS. [This] is a major work that scholars and students are likely to consult for many years to come.

Women's Review of Books - Patrice Clark Koelsch

This book is a welcome addition to any syllabus related to medicine; science; the sociology of knowledge; the media; social movements; and gender, race, class, and ethnicity. While each chapter is coherent and could stand alone, readers best experience the magnitude and power through reading the entire contents. Indeed, sociologists, anthropologists, historians, and literary and media critics, as well as epidemiologists and clinicians are fortunate to have such a blessing as Treichler’s extensive research and interpretation of AIDS/HIV.

American Journal of Sociology - Lisa Jean Moore

Treichler's primary arguments are that the AIDS epidemic is cultural and linguistic as well as biological and biomedical. . . . [A] series of case studies that document the epidemic, read its texts with some attention to contemporary theory, and explore what theory does or does not do in this epidemic.

Choice Magazine