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The lectures are hybrid as you can watch online, in person or on replay at a later date. Sign up to watch through the links below.

Part of:

AIDS: A Cultural History

6pm, Tue 30 May 2023

Gresham College, Barnard’s Inn Hall / Online/ Watch Later

https://www.gresham.ac.uk/whats-on/aids-history

AIDS is an example of a highly stigmatising ailment. This lecture explores Susan Sontag’s aphorism that “metaphors kill”. Focussing on the period before the invention of antiretroviral drugs, the lecture also addresses questions of civil liberties, gender and sexuality, race, religion, and cultures of both harm and care. By paying attention to how hierarchies of grief were created and contested, it addresses questions of loss as well as solidarity.

These are part of this series: A Cultural History of Disease (Medical History)

Professor Joanna Bourke

https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/series/cultural-disease

Acclaimed cultural historian Professor Joanna Bourke will be exploring six physical maladies that have afflicted people throughout the world: tuberculosis, polio, breast cancer, AIDS, sickle cell disease, and dementia.

Read more about Gresham College’s free public lectures since 1597 here.

Professor Joanna Bourke is a Fellow of the British Academy and the prizewinning author of 14 books. Read more about her here. 

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