Absent Bodies
The Aids Memorial Quilt as Social Melancholia
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 7099519 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Steven James Gambardella (University College London, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2011 |
| Volume | 45 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 213-226 |
| Publication date | 2011-03-28 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of American Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0021-8758 • E-ISSN: 1469-5154 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0021875811000077 |
| OpenAlex | W2326509275 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 7 |
| References cited | 3 |
Far from being apolitical, self-indulgent or ineffective, as was suggested by some in the activist community, the NAMES Project Quilt became a symbol of the decimation of AIDS and a beacon for those in the AIDS-affected community, and challenged and transformed public attitudes towards people with AIDS. The NAMES Project Quilt risked sanitizing and homogenizing the particularities of the deceased, but I shall argue that the spectacle of the quilt changed public opinion through its mechanisms of publicity and meaning-making. Building on Michael Warner's notion of the ‘Mass Subject’, the quilt, I will suggest, transformed the mainstream, effectively forcing the formerly abject AIDS-affected community into public consciousness through the mechanisms of mass media
Aesthetics · Art · Mainstream · Meaning (existential · Media studies · Political science · Publicity · Quilt · Sociology · Spectacle · Visual arts · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Gender Studies · Law · Music History and Culture · Psychology
| Citations per year | 0.7 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2016 - 2023 (8) |
| Highly cited | No |