Plague-Making and the AIDS Epidemic

Since its appearance in the United States, AIDS has been called a plague. Yet when we view AIDS in the cultural context of other diseases named as plagues throughout history, it reveals that many diseases become plagues because they are associated with unaccepted behaviors and marginalized groups. This book explores how the cultural process of making any disease a plague results in discrimination against certain groups, as it has for those with AIDS in America. Gina M. Bright here captures the discrimination produced by plague-making in her analysis and her portraits of the people she has cared for with AIDS over the past quarter-century.