HIV/AIDS in Memory, Culture and Society

This volume examines the role of culture in developing social, cultural and political discourses of HIV/AIDS from a contemporary viewpoint. In doing so, the memory of HIV/AIDS is a powerful tool to examine representations of the past and connect them with future debates. This reassessment of HIV/AIDS explores the most appropriate way to come to terms with a past that involved a negative, stigmatised and marginalised representation. Therefore, remembering plays a key role in generating collective memory, which allows for the exchange of mnemonic content between individual minds, creates discourses on memory and commemoration, and disseminates versions of the past that may affect the representation of HIV/AIDS in the future. Indeed, rewriting about the past also means assessing our responsibility towards the present and the potential of transmission to future generations, especially in times of pandemics.

Dr Alicia Castillo Villanueva is an Assistant Professor in Hispanic Studies, Gender and Sexuality at the School of Applied Language and Intercultural Studies (SALIS) in Dublin City University. She lectures and researches on the field of Feminist studies with a focus on the social and cultural representations of different forms of gender-based violence, conflict, and memory. She is the co-author of New Approaches to Translation, Conflict and Memory (Palgrave).

Dr Angelos Bollas is Assistant Professor in the School of Communications at Dublin City University. His research focuses on societal discrimination in relation to sexuality, cultural representations of masculinities, expressions of masculinities which challenge normative understandings of gender and sexuality, as well as pedagogical considerations around inclusion and diversity. He is the author of Contemporary Irish Masculinities and Sexualised Governmentalities (Springer).