Tag: epidemic

Taking Turns

Taking Turns is a graphic novel that explores HIV/AIDS Care Unit 371 at the Illinois Masonic Medical Center in Chicago during the peak of the AIDS epidemic. Through archival records, oral histories, and MK Czerwiec’s first-hand experiences as a nurse on the ward, the novel sheds light on the challenges and resilience of the community during this critical period. With simple illustrations and a practical four-panel format, “Taking Turns” delivers a direct and accessible narrative, offering readers an opportunity to not only absorb the history easily, but prompting empathetic reflection for each member of the community – patients, families, and medical staff. This novel could provoke discussions about caregiver narratives, and the efficacy of graphic novels in communicating narrative.

HIV, Mon Amour: Poems by Tory Dent

“HIV, Mon Amour,” a collection of poems by Tory Dent, transcends conventional narratives surrounding HIV/AIDS. Dent, who was HIV positive, employs lyric poetry to create a deeply personal and bracingly honest narrative, resisting the dominant journalistic and political expressions associated with the epidemic. Through her unique approach, Dent navigates the stigmas attached to HIV/AIDS, rejecting both the stigmatizing and activist-driven narratives. Her use of language, range of feeling, and occasional self-doubt reveal a nuanced exploration of her experience. This collection serves as a powerful testament to the complexity of individual lives affected by HIV/AIDS, challenging pre-existing socio-political frameworks and fostering a deeper understanding of the human experience behind the statistics and red ribbons. Dent’s poetry could be used to analyze how illness narratives are far from one-dimensional – the poetry showcases the often contradictory feelings wrapped up in illness by encompassing pain and joy, isolation and community, the private and the public. “HIV, Mon Amour” could also be used to examine poetry as a narrative form.

Love in the Time of Cholera

Originally written in Spanish, this is a novel about a relationship over the course of a lifetime, where due to a father’s taboo, the lovers must be apart. It characterizes lovesickness and heartache as a literal sickness. It also destigmatizes love and passion in old age by showing the two protagonists finally getting to be together fifty years after they were torn apart. However, it does point to the limitations of societal expectations because in order to be together the lovers must stay on a ship pretending to be in cholera quarantine. This could be useful for teaching about elderly relationships and the stigmas around sex and intimacy in old age, as well as how real health crises, like cholera, permeate deeply into a society. One could draw parallels between cholera and COVID and the social impacts of epidemics and pandemics.