Attitudes towards HIV and AIDS have changed drastically since 1996 with the advent of protease inhibitors and other life-sustaining treatments. For many, these “wonder drugs” have connoted a cure for the disease. Since these treatments have been developed, world cultures have largely operated under a “post-AIDS” ideology, with representations of the disease occurring with far less frequency and substance than in previous years. Meanwhile, large segments of the population continue to contract HIV, and AIDS-infected individuals continue to die. Prevention, education and treatment efforts have fallen significantly off of the cultural radar since 1996, though there has arguably never been a comprehensive cultural response to the pandemic.

This collection of essays, tentatively titled _remember AIDS?_, will explore how activists, academicians, policy makers, and persons living with HIV and AIDS address recent silences in the discourse. Possible topics may include, but are not limited to:

• Representation of AIDS in cultural media, e.g., literature, film, theatre, and music
• Intersections of AIDS and class, gender, race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation
• Epistemological and phenomenological considerations of navigating “post-AIDS” cultures
• AIDS in the 21st century
• Corpo)reality and ontology of AIDS
• Performativity and AIDS
• AIDS as terror
• Locating AIDS on the cultural landscape
• The apocalypse of AIDS then, the apocalypse of silence now

Please email full-length papers to co-editor Dr. Donald Gagnon at GagnonD@wcsu.edu. Ideas and/or questions about submissions are encouraged and may be sent to co-editor Chris Bell at cbell4@uic.edu.

Deadline for receipt of submissions is June 17, 2005.