Epidemic history in ‘In the Shadow of the American Dream’ – The Diaries of David Wojnarowicz
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7203/HYBRIDA.3.21829Keywords:
self-writing, AIDS writing, epidemic narratives, stylistics, patient narrative
Abstract
In his autobiographical testimony In the Shadow of the American Dream (1998), American multidisciplinary artist David Wojnarowicz narrates his fight against the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) which he died of at the age of 37. What is the narrative stucture of the author’s personal diaries? How does he express an epidemic experience that is both individual and collective? By putting the text into perspective with other contemporary works, both English and French, the author of this article first examines the fragmentation and the discontinuity of the narrative. Then, she analyzes the lexicon and the metaphors by which Wojnarowicz not only describes his experience of the disease, but also makes visible a whole community of activists who struggle to exist and to assert their rights.
Downloads
Author Biography
Caroline Benedetto, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle (Paris 3) LACES EA 7437
References
Blanchot, M. (1980). L’Écriture du désastre. Gallimard.
Blanckeman, B. (2016). Hervé Guibert, témoin d’exception. Dans A. Badin, S. Genetti, F. Libasci et J-M Roulin (éds), Littérature et sida, alors et encore (vol. 62, pp. 27-38), Cahiers de recherche des instituts néerlandais de langue et de littérature française. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004325975
Camus, A. (1947). La Peste. Les Éditions Gallimard.
Chambers, R. (1998). Facing it: AIDS diaries and the death of the author. University of Michigan Press.
Durand, T. (2020). À partir d’(Une scène primitive ?) : ‘Écrire pour s’interrompre’ ou le tragique chez Maurice Blanchot. Études littéraires, 49 (1), 125–141. https://doi.org/10.7202/1065522ar
Fondation Visual Aids. (2021). David Wojnarowicz. https://visualaids.org/artists/david-wojnarowicz
Fotherby, J. (mai 2020). The 'Invisible Enemy: A Critical Look at the Use of Military Metaphors and Anthropomorphisation During The COVID-19 Pandemic. Medical Anthropology at University College London. https://medanthucl.com/2020/05/13/the-invisible-enemy-a-critical-look-at-the-use-of-military-metaphors-and-anthropomorphisation-during-the-covid-19-pandemic/
Frank, A. (2013). The Wounded Storyteller: Body, Illness, and Ethics, Second Edition. University of Chicago Press.
Fruth, B. (2007). Media Reception, Sexual Identity, and Public Space [Thèse de doctorat]. University of Texas at Austin.
Guattari, F. (2017). David Wojnarowicz, par Félix Guattari. Éditions Laurence Viallet. www.editions-laurence-viallet.com/cahier/david-wojnarowicz-par-felix-guattari
Kimmelman, M. (19 mars 1989). Bitter Harvest: AIDS and the Arts. The New York Times Archives. www.nytimes.com/1989/03/19/arts/bitter-harvest-aids-and-the-arts.html
Lee, P. (1999). Object to be Destroyed: The Work of Gordon Matta-Clark. The MIT Press.
Lochlann Jain, S. (2013). Malignant: How Cancer Becomes Us. University of California Press.
Logie, C. H. et Turan, J. M. (2020). How Do We Balance Tensions Between Covid-19 Public Health Responses and Stigma Mitigation? Learning from HIV Research. Aids and Behavior, 24, 2003-2006. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10461-020-02856-8
Logie, C. H. (2020). Lessons learned from HIV can inform our approach to COVID‐19 stigma. Journal of the International AIDS Society (JIAS), 23(5). https://doi.org/10.1002/jia2.25504
Marx, W. (avril 2020). Ce que la littérature nous apprend de l’épidémie. Fondation Collège de France. https://www.fondation-cdf.fr/2020/04/20/ce-que-la-litterature-nous-apprend-de-lepidemie/
Montagne, V. (2017). Médecine et rhétorique à la Renaissance. Le cas du traité de peste en langue vernaculaire. Garnier, coll. Bibliothèque de la Renaissance.
Palmier, J-M. (1999). Fragments sur la vie mutilée : 1996, 97, 98. Sens & Tonka.
Ricoeur, P. (1990). Soi-même comme un autre. Seuil.
Rimbaud, A. (2009). Œuvres complètes. Gallimard, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade. (Travail original publié en 1871)
Russo, V. (1988). Why We Fight. ACT UP, New York. www.actupny.org/documents/whfight.html
Setti, N. (2016). Mon corps m’appartient-il ? Distopies corporelles du corps étranger, dans A. Badin, S. Genetti, F. Libasci et J-M Roulin (éds), Littérature et sida, alors et encore (vol. 62, p. 39), Cahiers de recherche des instituts néerlandais de langue et de littérature française. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004325975
Smallwood, C. (7 septembre 2018). The Rage and Tenderness of David Wojnarowicz’s Art. The New York Times. http:www.nytimes.com/2018/09/07/magazine/the-rage-and-tenderness-of-david-wojnarowiczs-art.html
Sontag, S. (1989). AIDS and its Metaphors. Allen Lane (Penguin).
Wojnarowicz, D. (1991). Postcards from America: X-Rays from Hell. Dans N. Goldin (org.) Witnesses: Against Our Vanishing (pp. 6-11). Artists Space. https://texts.artistsspace.org/ljdsawyb
Wojnarowicz, D. (1991). Close to the Knives: A Memoir of Disintegration. Vintage Books.
Wojnarowicz, D. (1998). In the Shadow of the American Dream: The Diaries of David Wojnarowicz. Open Road Media.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
-
Abstract588
-
PDF (Français )290
Issue
Section
License
All the documents in the OJS platform are open access and property of their respective authors.
Authors publishing in the journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors keep the rights and guarantee HYBRIDA the right to be the first publication of the document, licensed under a Creative Commons license Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of authorship and publication in the journal.
- Authors are allowed and encouraged to spread their work (once published) through electronic means using personal or institutional websites (institutional open archives, personal websites or professional and academic networks profiles) once the text has been published.
Similar Articles
Make a Submission
Language
Information
Keywords
