We return for the fourteenth
episode of American History Too! to
discuss a horrifying and shameful period in US history: the outbreak and response to the HIV/AIDS
crisis during the 1980s.
Academic impartiality
is at a premium as we delve into social and cultural reasons behind the US
government’s failure to tame the spread of the deadly virus. We also consider the important cultural touchstones
that HIV/AIDS inspired and also the evolution of gay rights in the US.
For those interested,
the British broadcast about AIDS that begins the show can be found here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SqRNUUOk7s
The broadcast stood
in stark contrast to official US silence on the issue.
We’ll be back in a
couple of weeks to start our series entitled ‘The Revolutionary Sixties?’
Thanks again for
listening,
Mark & Malcolm
Contact at
@ahtoopodast or
ahtoo@outlook.com
Reading List
Jennifer Brier, ‘“Save Our Kids, Keep AIDS Out”: Anti-AIDS
Activism and the Legacy of Community Control in Queens, New York’, Journal
of Social History, 39:4 (Summer, 2006), 965-987
Elizabeth Fee and Nancy Krieger, ‘The Emerging Histories of
AIDS: Three Successive Paradigms’, History and Philosophy of the Life
Sciences, 15:3 (1993), 459-487
Randy Shilts, And the band played on: politics,
people, and the AIDS epidemic (New York: Penguin, 1987)
Films and Documentaries
And the Band Played On , HBO film based on Randy Shilts book (1993)
Dir. Jonathan Demme,
Philadelphia (1993)
Angels in America, HBO miniseries (2003)
‘The Age of Aids,’ PBS
Frontline (2006) – numerous interviews available on website.
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