AIDS and American Apocalypticism

Thomas L. Long

Description

Since public discourse about AIDS began in 1981, it has characterized AIDS as an apocalyptic plague: a punishment for sin and a sign of the end of the world. Christian fundamentalists had already configured the gay male population most visibly affected by AIDS as apocalyptic signifiers or signs of the "end times." Their discourse grew out of a centuries-old American apocalypticism that included images of crisis, destruction, and ultimate renewal. In this book, Thomas L. Long examines the ways in which gay and AIDS activists, artists, writers, scientists, and journalists appropriated this apocalyptic rhetoric in order to mobilize attention to the medical crisis, prevent the spread of the disease, and treat the HIV infected.

Using the analytical tools of literary analysis, cultural studies, performance theory, and social semiotics, AIDS and American Apocalypticism examines many kinds of discourse, including fiction, drama, performance art, demonstration graphics and brochures, biomedical publications, and journalism and shows that, while initially useful, the effects of apocalyptic rhetoric in the long term are dangerous. Among the important figures in AIDS activism and the arts discussed are David Drake, Tim Miller, Sarah Schulman, and Tony Kushner, as well as the organizations ACT UP and Lesbian Avengers.
Preface

1 Apocalyptus Interruptus: Christianity, Sodomy and the End
2 Exile of the Queer Evangelist
3 Larry Kramer and the American Jeremiad
4 AIDS Armageddon
5 Mal’kim in America

Afterword
Notes
Index

Sujets

• Gay Studies
• Theatre

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 01 février 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780791484678
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

AIDS and American Apocalypticism

SUNY series in the Sociology of Culture

Charles R. Simpson, editor

AIDS and American Apocalypticism

The Cultural Semiotics of an Epidemic

Thomas L. Long

S TATE  U NIVERSITY OF  N EW  Y ORK  P RESS

Published by State University of New York Press, Albany

© 2005 State University of New York

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

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Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data

Long, Thomas L. AIDS and American apocalypticism : the cultural semiotics of an epidemic / Thomas L. Long. p. cm. — (SUNY series in the sociology of culture) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-7914-6167-X (alk. paper) — ISBN 0-7914-6168-8 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. AIDS (Disease)—United States—Religious aspects. 2. Apocalyptic literature. I. Title. II. Series. [DNLM: 1. Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome—psychology. 2. Religion and Medicine. 3. Medicine in Literature. 4. Morals. 5. Public Opinion. WC 503.7 L849a 2004] RA643.83.L66 2004 362.196’9792’00973—dc22 2004022402

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Jack Ray Andy Bill

Kerry Jerry Jack Mike Harvey

To my parents

In memory of

Tim Jack Glynn Rusty Bill

Charley Sonny Roger Reilly Virgil

Andy Doug Tim Jim Michael

and the others whose names I have forgotten.

Brett Mike Jack Patrick

Si lunga tratta di gente, ch’io non avrei mai creduto che morte tanta n’avesse disfatta.Inferno III, 55–57 (“I had not thought death had undone so many”)

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Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Preface

Contents

Apocalyptus Interruptus:Sodomy Christianity, and the End

Exile of the Queer Evangelist

Larry Kramer and the American Jeremiad

AIDS Armageddon

Mal’kîm in America

Afterword

Notes

Index

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29

63

107

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239

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Preface

This book grew out of rage and grief, my own, of course, but also that of others. During the 1980s as a Roman Catholic priest, I struggled with the awful and initially limited knowledge of an epidemic, first called “Gay Related Immune Dysfunction” (GRID), later Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS). At the hospital bedside of sick and dying people, beside their families, friends, lovers at funerals, and in the horrible solitude of my own room where I read my body daily for any signifier of disease, I was confronted by the human need to make sense of this epidemic. During the 1990s and now, as an academic, activist, and public intellectual, I have wrestled with the purposes of social and cultural analysis in the midst of a public health crisis. One result is this book. A book is not written so much as it is built, and this book, as much as most, relied on a large construction crew. Michael Vella, professor of American Studies at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, who served as my mentor in this book’s early life, provided caring and careful critiques of it at every stage. Patrick Murphy, in the English Department of Cen- tral Florida University, and Cecilia Rodríguez-Milanés, director of Women’s Studies at Central Florida University, provided searching questions that led to its further improvement. Anonymous reviewers and series editor, Charles Simpson, for the State University of New York Press afforded me what every writer desires: a sympathetic, careful, and critically fair read- ing, with recommendations for revisions. John T. Dever, my former Communications and Humanities Divi- sion dean at Thomas Nelson Community College and now executive vice president of Northern Virginia Community College, has been both an inspiration and a mentor. Educational leave provided by Thomas Nelson Community College permitted me seven uninterrupted months to re- search and write. The members of the monthly Gay Men’s Book Group of Hampton Roads (Virginia) have been encouraging friends and alert readers, and I

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