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HIV Stories: The Archaeology of AIDS Writing in France, 1985-1988
Jean-Pierre Boulé
Copyright Date: 2002
Edition: 1
Published by: Liverpool University Press
Pages: 240
https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt5vjd23
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Book Info
HIV Stories
Book Description:

This book draws attention to the existence in France of an AIDS literature from 1985 to 1988 before AIDS writing became either a widely recognised genre or a culturally influential form of writing. It is a predominantly literary critical study, informed by gender studies and psychoanalytic criticism in its readings of individual texts, and interwoven with contextual information.

eISBN: 978-1-84631-328-8
Subjects: Language & Literature
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Table of Contents
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  1. Front Matter
    Front Matter (pp. i-iv)
  2. Table of Contents
    Table of Contents (pp. v-v)
  3. Acknowledgements
    Acknowledgements (pp. vi-viii)
  4. Introduction
    Introduction (pp. 1-28)

    This book offers an archaeology of AIDS writing in France from 1985 to 1988. The main focus is on the moment of the irruption into discourse of AIDS writing. I want to look at two aspects of this moment: the problem of how to write about a new and taboo topic, and the problem of the frameworks of discourse that are produced/reproduced in such writing, particularly the difficulty of breaking out of certain constraints. As an archaeological enterprise, my book disinters a body of writing about AIDS that appeared in France between 1985 and 1988 from the cultural oblivion to...

  5. Part I AIDS Fiction
    • 1 Laygues: The Ambiguity in Witnessing
      1 Laygues: The Ambiguity in Witnessing (pp. 31-45)

      At first glance, Hélène Laygues’ book,Sida, Témoignage sur la vie et la mort de Martin¹ seems to belong to the category of writings classified under the title ‘AIDS and the Culture of Accompaniment in France’, in Ross Chambers’s influential article on the subject.² Published in 1985, the back cover tells us that the book is original since it is the first time that an account of witnessing (‘témoignage’) is offered by a woman whose husband has contracted the illness. Witnessing implies engagement with a subject rather than detachment, closeness rather than distance. An analysis of the book will establish...

    • 2 Juliette: Masculinist Desires and Sexualities
      2 Juliette: Masculinist Desires and Sexualities (pp. 46-64)

      Pourquoi moi?¹ is the first account by a woman of having contracted the HIV virus to be published in France. As I mentioned in the introduction, there is a possibility that a male author is masquerading behind the female voice, but there is no evidence to indicate this. Let us assume for a moment that the story may be an invention, as Mirko Grmek believes it is.² This does not prevent it from carrying a level of significance since the story is presented as something that actually took place. The first-person narrator positions herself in relation to a particular set...

    • 3 Winer: Masculinity, Grief and Sexuality
      3 Winer: Masculinity, Grief and Sexuality (pp. 65-86)

      Published in 1988,Bienvenue dans le monde du Sida! (Welcome to the World of AIDS!) claims that it is an ‘histoire vécue’ (‘a real life/true story’).¹ The back cover tells us that a woman called Mona sleeps with men after meeting them in nightclubs. In the morning, she leaves a message with her red lipstick on the bathroom mirror, always the same one. One cannot help but draw the conclusion that the message is the actual title of the book, especially since a red lipstick lies below the handwritten title on the front cover. The blurb then introduces Mike Winer,...

  6. Part II AIDS Testimony
    • 4 Testimony, Self-Avowal and Confession
      4 Testimony, Self-Avowal and Confession (pp. 89-119)

      This chapter brings together two instances of AIDS writing as testimonial. My reading will concentrate on the autobiographical nature of these texts but this approach is not meant to undermine the testimonial ‘spirit’ which was emerging in France as early as 1986. These testimonies were a political gesture intended to perform a particular political act through a particular statement, which then becomes more than personal. But this writing had to ‘assert’ itself against the AIDS fiction which, as I showed in Part I, mirrored the social attitudes of the time. This testimonial writing offers a contrast with the exploitative narratives...

    • 5 Dreuilhe: Metaphor/Phantasy and Mobilisation
      5 Dreuilhe: Metaphor/Phantasy and Mobilisation (pp. 120-141)

      Corps à corps,Journal de Sida,¹ was published in France in 1987 by the prestigious publisher Gallimard in the series ‘Au vif du sujet’ (‘At the heart of the matter’) when Dreuilhe was 38. The book was published in North America in 1988. This text is characterised by what is referred to in the secondary literature as ‘the military metaphor’.Corps à corpshas been caught up in the wider debate about the merits or drawbacks of using this metaphor for AIDS writing.

      Let me start by describing the metaphoric texture ofCorps à corps. AIDS is represented as World...

  7. Conclusion
    Conclusion (pp. 142-149)

    Early AIDS writing went on in the margins of literature. Most of the books lack the usual literary qualities and yet found their way to being published and read. They have a fragmented, raw authenticity which makes them worth studying today. One can imagine the pressure of the subject-matter building up throughout the early 1980s and the bubble bursting when these texts were published, at times at the expense of literariness and often in the form of fragmented pieces rather than as fully fledged texts, reflecting the dwindling energy of their authors. They are not all built on the same...

  8. Notes
    Notes (pp. 150-166)
  9. Bibliography
    Bibliography (pp. 167-175)
  10. Index
    Index (pp. 176-184)
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