Exhibitions: AIDS, Posters & Stories of Public Health”

Taking Turns: Stories from HIV/AIDS Care Unit 371 by MK Czerwiec

Penn State University Press | 2017 | ISBN: 78-0271078182| 224 pages | Teen/high school | Nonfiction

Genre: Graphic novel/memoir

A graphic memoir and adapted oral history of Unit 371, an inpatient AIDS care hospital unit in Chicago that was in existence from 1985 to 2000. Examines the human costs of caregiving and the role art can play in the grieving process.

AIDS at 30: A History by Victoria A. Harden

Potomac Books| 2012 (orig. c. 1623) | ISBN: 978-1597972949| 340 pages | Adult/college | Nonfiction

Genre: History/Science/LGBT

Society was not prepared in 1981 for the appearance of a new infectious disease, but we have since learned that emerging and reemerging diseases will continue to challenge humanity. AIDS at 30 is the first history of HIV/AIDS written for a general audience that emphasizes the medical response to the epidemic.Award-winning medical historian Victoria A. Harden approaches the AIDS virus from philosophical and intellectual perspectives in the history of medical science, discussing the process of scientific discovery, scientific evidence, and how laboratories found the cause of AIDS and developed therapeutic interventions. Similarly, her book places AIDS as the first infectious disease to be recognized simultaneously worldwide as a single phenomenon.After years of believing that vaccines and antibiotics would keep deadly epidemics away, researchers, doctors, patients, and the public were forced to abandon the arrogant assumption that they had conquered infectious diseases. By presenting an accessible discussion of the history of HIV/AIDS and analyzing how aspects of society advanced or hindered the response to the disease, AIDS at 30 illustrates for both medical professionals and general readers how medicine identifies and evaluates new infectious diseases quickly and what political and cultural factors limit the medical community’s response.

The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai

Viking Press| 2018 | ISBN: 978-0735223523| 432 pages | Adult | Fiction

Genre: Historical fiction/LGBTQ

In 1985, Yale Tishman, the development director for a Chicago art gallery, is about to pull off a coup, bringing an extraordinary collection of 1920s paintings. Yet as his career begins to flourish, the carnage of the AIDS epidemic grows around him. One by one, his friends are dying and after his friend Nico’s funeral, the virus circles closer and closer to Yale himself. Soon the only person he has left is Fiona, Nico’s little sister. Thirty years later, Fiona is in Paris tracking down her estranged daughter who disappeared into a cult. While staying with an old friend, a famous photographer who documented the Chicago epidemic, she finds herself finally grappling with the devastating ways the AIDS crisis affected her life and her relationship with her daughter. Yale and Fiona’s intertwining stories take us through the heartbreak of ’80s and the chaos of the modern world, as both struggle to find goodness in the midst of disaster.

When We Rise by Cleve Jones

Hachette Books| 2016 ISBN: 9780316315432| 291 pages | Adult | Nonfiction

Genre: Memoir/Autobiography/Social Movements

Born in 1954, Cleve Jones was among the last generation of gay Americans who grew up wondering if there were others out there like himself. There were. By turns tender and uproarious, When We Rise is Jones' account of his remarkable life. He chronicles the heartbreak of losing countless friends to AIDS, which very nearly killed him, too; his co-founding of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation during the terrifying early years of the epidemic; his conception of the AIDS Memorial Quilt, the largest community art project in history; the bewitching story of 1970s San Francisco and the magnetic spell it cast for thousands of young gay people and other misfits; and the harrowing, sexy, and sometimes hilarious stories of Cleve's passionate relationships with friends and lovers during an era defined by both unprecedented freedom and violence alike.

Let the Record Show: A Political History of ACT UP New York, 1987–1993 by Sarah Schulman

Farrar, Straus and Giroux | 2021 ISBN: 9780374185138| 702 pages | Adult | Nonfiction

Genre: History/LGBT/Social Justice

"Twenty years in the making, Sarah Schulman's Let the Record Show is the most comprehensive political history ever assembled of ACT UP and American AIDS activism. In just six years, ACT UP, New York, a broad and unlikely coalition of activists from all races, genders, sexualities, and backgrounds, changed the world. Armed with rancor, desperation, intelligence, and creativity, it took on the AIDS crisis with an indefatigable, ingenious, and multifaceted attack on the corporations, institutions, governments, and individuals who stood in the way of AIDS treatment for all. They stormed the FDA and NIH in Washington, DC, and started needle exchange programs in New York; they took over Grand Central Terminal and fought to change the legal definition of AIDS to include women; they transformed the American insurance industry, weaponized art and advertising to push their agenda, and battled--and beat--The New York Times, the Catholic Church, and the pharmaceutical industry. Their activism, in its complex and intersectional power, transformed the lives of people with AIDS and the bigoted society that had abandoned them.

Based on more than two hundred interviews with ACT UP members and rich with lessons for today's activists, Let the Record Show is a revelatory exploration--and long-overdue reassessment--of the coalition's inner workings, conflicts, achievements, and ultimate fracture. Schulman, one of the most revered queer writers and thinkers of her generation, explores the how and the why, examining, with her characteristic rigor and bite, how a group of desperate outcasts changed America forever, and in the process created a livable future for generations of people across the world."

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How to Survive a Plague* directed by David France

Sundance Selects, IFC | 2012 | 98% Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer | 109 minutes | Rated NR | Documentary

Genre: LGBT/History/Activism/Politics

American documentary film depicting the early years of the AIDS epidemic, and the efforts of activist groups ACT UP and TAG. It was directed by David France, a journalist who covered AIDS from its beginnings. It was produced using over 700 hours of archived footage, including news coverage, interviews, and footage of demonstrations, meetings, and conferences filmed by ACT UP members themselves.

United in Anger: A History of ACT UP directed by Jim Hubbard

Jim Hubbard | YEAR | 78% Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer | 93 minutes | N/A | Documentary

Genre: LGBT/History/Medicine

UNITED IN ANGER: A HISTORY OF ACT UP explores the story of ACT UP (the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) from the grassroots perspective—how a small group of men and women of all races and classes, came together to change the world and save each other’s lives. The film takes the viewer through the planning and execution of a dozen exhilarating major actions including Seize Control of the FDA, Stop the Church, and Day of Desperation, with a timeline of many of the other zaps and actions that forced the U.S. government and mainstream media to deal with the AIDS crisis.

Target Zero: Preventing HIV Transmission directed by Mary Posatko

Collaboration of LAC+USC, the RCSB Protein Data Bank, Rutgers University, the University of Utah, and USC Cinema | YEAR | 78% Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer | 56 minutes | The primary audiences of this film are medical students and medical professionals | Documentary

Genre: Educational/Medicine/Women's Health/LGBT

Target Zero is a documentary series that focuses on the medical as well as the social aspects of HIV treatment and prevention. The three short films interweave real-life patient stories, interviews with leading doctors, medical providers and scientists; and state of the art molecular animations.

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