Precarious queers and queer precarity: cross-cultural literary responses to AIDS from David Wojnarowicz to CAConrad | AHRC DTP
Subject: Literature
HEI: University of Edinburgh; University of St Andrews
School: School of Literature, Languages and Cultures
Supervisors: Dr Benjamin Bateman; University of Edinburgh; Professor Glyn Davis; University of St Andrews.
Keywords: Queer, HIV/AIDS, twentieth-century literature.
Discipline+Catalyst: Literature
Knowledge Exchange Hub: Citizenship, Culture & Ethics.
About Lewis’ Research:
Lewis’ research re-evaluates the literary canon formed in response to the AIDS crisis. Formerly understood as ‘gay male literature,’ it establishes an alternative body of ‘queer’ AIDS-response literature which focuses on the development of cross-cultural connections and coalitional community formation in response to prejudice and social inequality. Using Judith Butler’s writings on precarity and other cultural theory to analyse AIDS literature, his work aims to broaden our understanding of the diversity of people impacted by AIDS, reclaim marginalised literary voices, contribute to theoretical debates about gay literature, and demonstrate that ‘queerness’ as we understand it today arose in direct response to AIDS.
CONNECT WITH LEWIS
E: lewis.wood@ed.ac.uk
IG: @susansonfag