Haunted spaces
Trauma, mourning, and melancholia in the HIV epidemic in France
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 18960241 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Brian Troth (independent scholar, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2021 |
| Volume | 46 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 129-146 |
| Publication date | 2021-06-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Contemporary French Civilization (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0147-9156 • E-ISSN: 2044-396X |
| Publisher | Liverpool University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.3828/cfc.2021.7 |
| OpenAlex | W3182467776 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 6 |
Several AIDS films produced in France in the last five years approach the subject of AIDS in a memorialized fashion, resulting in the contemporary stakes of the epidemic going unheard, as noted by François Berdougo and Gabriel Girard. In this essay, this phenomenon is read as a cultural trauma and melancholia for gay men. Through Freudian trauma theory and Derridean notions of hauntology, this article argues that gay men are unable to escape the specters of the AIDS epidemic. First, the article explores the way haunting is invoked through public health campaigns, reactions to the epidemic, and cultural productions. Second, it engages with the 2016 film Théo et Hugo dans le même bateau to assert that while contemporary discourse is still marked by spectres of trauma, today’s advances in medicine and understanding of the disease allow for certain sexual behaviors to be practiced without fear of contamination and with the resolution of melancholia. Théo et Hugo accomplishes this through a reversal of the Orphic tragedy, here reread as an invitation to live life after AIDS
Art · Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) · Melancholia · Psychiatry · Psychoanalysis · Diverse Cultural and Historical Studies · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · Medicine · Psychology · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies · Virology
| Citations per year | 0.33 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2023 - 2023 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |