Routledge AIDS Narratives: Gender and Sexuality, Fiction and Science

AIDS Narratives: Gender and Sexuality, Fiction and Science is the first book-length study focused on the fiction resulting from the AIDS crisis. This academic work explores how scientific discourse surrounding AIDS has reflected specific ideologies of gender and sexuality. It examines how the construction of AIDS as a disease primarily affecting gay men has impacted public attention and shaped narrative understandings of the epidemic. The text looks at how these scientific discourses have influenced how stories are told. It addresses the ways in which the disease has been depicted as a fatal weakening of bodily defenses, often used to reconfirm certain social identities. By looking at the connection between science and literature, this book provides a deep look into how gendered and sexualized perspectives have influenced the way the AIDS crisis is documented through fiction.