Feeling Sick: The Early Years of AIDS in Spain
Published on 2. May 2023
Book
Hardback
224 pages
978-1-80207-804-6 (ISBN)
Description
An Open Access edition of this book is available on the Liverpool University Press website and the OAPEN library as part of the Opening the Future project with COPIM.
The earliest traceable accounts of the AIDS outbreak in Spain began to emerge during its political transition to democracy, with small clusters of cases appearing as early as 1981. HIV/AIDS would go on to shape Spain throughout its pivotal period as a fledgling democracy, underpinning the cultural explosions of the Movida, a sharp rise in intravenous drug use, and the struggles of a coalescing LGBT+ community. Feeling Sick: The Early Years of HIV/AIDS in Spain examines the cultural history of these early years of HIV/AIDS in Spain as it has been told through television and print media, ephemeral products of visual culture, fiction film, and the so-called risk groups that lived through the epidemic. The book draws on the work of Raymond Williams to characterize this emergent period within a structure of "feeling sick" and thus defined by discordant voices, disagreement, and meaning-making in a period of history in formation. Through close readings of Spanish visual culture and media alongside analysis of historical and medical documents, it asserts that a structure of feeling sick begins to coalesce around the emergence of HIV/AIDS and traces out a distinctive sense of living through history as it unfolds. By critically evaluating a selection of cultural materials, this book claims that the earliest years of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Spain reveal common fears about global connectivity, the proliferation of vulnerable ties to others, and the potential of cultural and physical contaminations. Ultimately, Feeling Sick challenges the dominant narratives in which life and disease are seen as separate and unequal, and in which illness is only destructive and devastating. An Open Access edition of this book is available on the Liverpool University Press website and the OAPEN library as part of the Opening the Future project with COPIM.
The earliest traceable accounts of the AIDS outbreak in Spain began to emerge during its political transition to democracy, with small clusters of cases appearing as early as 1981. HIV/AIDS would go on to shape Spain throughout its pivotal period as a fledgling democracy, underpinning the cultural explosions of the Movida, a sharp rise in intravenous drug use, and the struggles of a coalescing LGBT+ community. Feeling Sick: The Early Years of HIV/AIDS in Spain examines the cultural history of these early years of HIV/AIDS in Spain as it has been told through television and print media, ephemeral products of visual culture, fiction film, and the so-called risk groups that lived through the epidemic. The book draws on the work of Raymond Williams to characterize this emergent period within a structure of "feeling sick" and thus defined by discordant voices, disagreement, and meaning-making in a period of history in formation. Through close readings of Spanish visual culture and media alongside analysis of historical and medical documents, it asserts that a structure of feeling sick begins to coalesce around the emergence of HIV/AIDS and traces out a distinctive sense of living through history as it unfolds. By critically evaluating a selection of cultural materials, this book claims that the earliest years of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Spain reveal common fears about global connectivity, the proliferation of vulnerable ties to others, and the potential of cultural and physical contaminations. Ultimately, Feeling Sick challenges the dominant narratives in which life and disease are seen as separate and unequal, and in which illness is only destructive and devastating. An Open Access edition of this book is available on the Liverpool University Press website and the OAPEN library as part of the Opening the Future project with COPIM.
Reviews / Votes
"This book draws into the spotlight a history of the early years of AIDS in Spain, forgotten by scholars and in Spain itself; and places little known Spanish material consistently in the context of international scholarship on illness, narcotics, and queer issues. It is lucidly and elegantly, sometimes movingly, written, and convincingly argued."Paul Julian Smith, Graduate Center, CUNY 'Feeling Sick constitutes an exemplary piece of historical and cultural research, combining theoretical insights with a very solid body of queer evidence. Indeed, the author goes beyond the more obvious archives to delve into TV programmes, an unedited film, and architectural ruins in an attempt to offer an oblique view through the cracks of society that charts a compelling and original narrative of how HIV and AIDS were construed during Spain's transition to democracy.' Alvaro Gonzalez Montero, Modern Language Review
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Liverpool
United Kingdom
Dimensions
Height: 239 mm
Width: 163 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-80207-804-6 (9781802078046)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
Dean Allbritton is Associate Professor of Spanish at Colby College.