Date of Award

Fall 2024

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

Women’s and Gender Studies

First Advisor

Amanda Apgar, Ph.D.

Second Advisor

Mairead Sullivan, Ph.D.

Abstract

In the past 40 years, the United States has faced 2 major public health crises: the AIDS epidemic, and the global COVID-19 pandemic. In this project I consider the various aspects of these public health emergencies such as sharing the burden of survival, the role of fear, the bastardization of identity politics, and queerness as a political project. I do this by analyzing oral histories and I argue that we can look at the AIDS epidemic and the COVID-19 pandemic in parallel. During both AIDS and COVID, despite severely lackluster governmental responses, we saw overwhelming amounts of community organizing and collective action on the part of the public. Why do public health crises, such as the HIV/AIDS epidemic and the COVID-19 pandemic push people towards collective social action? I will be drawing on ideas from feminist care ethics, especially ideas of interdependence. ACT UP was given life through the community they created for themselves but a hallmark of COVID-19 was isolation. I will explore how interdependence and community plays out in the context of COVID-19 since we were all alone for so long. Additionally, drawing on ideas about the social contract and Foucault’s ideas about governmentality, what is it about COVID and AIDS in particular, that made people feel so powerless and made our bodies available for governing in ways that they previously had not been? Lastly, I will explore queerness as a political position. Queerness is not about sexuality but rather, relationships to power and the state. Especially regarding COVID, some people just wanted things to go back to “normal” as quick as possible while others saw it as an opportunity to change the social order, and how do these perspectives affect the way people respond to major crises?

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