The AIDS Notebooks (SUNY series in the Philosophy of the Social Sciences) - Hardcover

Schecter, Stephen

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0791403335 ISBN 13: 9780791403334

Publisher: State University of New York Press, 1990

Synopsis

This book reflects on the meaning of contemporary life in the light of diverse social reactions to AIDS. Drawing on personal interviews with gay men in Montreal, newspaper reports, government action, historical parallels, and other social facts, the author shows what the AIDS phenomenon can reveal about the nature of current reality. Intimate dimensions of experience are explored in order to understand the medical definition of human life, the 'post-modern' character of the contemporary period, and the pervasive influence of technique. The social analysis of AIDS is interwoven with personal, literary, and philosophical reflections that rebound onto the terrain of intimacy, allowing us to see what a critical reading of AIDS as a social phenomenon tells us about the elemental dramas of existence ― of love, pain, death, and sex.

Represented here is one man's stock-taking of his generation's experience, exploring the social futures that different reactions to AIDS hold out to us. In the tradition of critical thought, the book is a contribution to the understanding which rescues life from the absurd.

About this title

About the Author

Stephen Schecter is a Professor of Sociology at the Université du Québec à Montréal.

Edition details

• Publisher: State University of New York Press
• Publication date: 1990
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0791403335
• ISBN 13: 9780791403334
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 166