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Download Objects Created by Other Users UCLA UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title ‘Your Nostalgia is Killing Me’: Activism, Affect and the Archives of HIV/AIDS Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2312c9bb Author Cifor, Marika Louise Publication Date 2017 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles ‘Your Nostalgia is Killing Me’: Activism, Affect and the Archives of HIV/AIDS A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Information Studies by Marika Louise Cifor 2017 © Copyright by Marika Louise Cifor 2017 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION ‘Your Nostalgia is Killing Me’: Activism, Affect, and the Archives of HIV/AIDS by Marika Louise Cifor Doctor of Philosophy in Information Studies University of California, Los Angeles, 2017 Professor Michelle L. Caswell, Chair Nostalgia has long been dismissed and derided by scholars and popular commentators as a pointless and self-indulgent wallowing in the past that stands in the way of social change in the present and for the future. In this archival ethnography, I examine the critical potential of nostalgia as recorded and produced by archives documenting 1980s and 1990s HIV/AIDS activism in the United States. I argue that critical nostalgia, an ethical mode of critique grounded in the bittersweet longing for a past time or space, is a productive lens at every moment of collaboration between HIV/AIDS archives and the AIDS activist communities they document and serve. I present case studies using materials culled from the New York Public Library’s Manuscripts and Archives Division, New York University’s Fales Library and Special Collections, and Visual AIDS, a community-based arts organization committed to raising AIDS awareness through visual art, assisting artists living with HIV/AIDS, and preserving artists’ legacies. Using these case studies, I show that critical nostalgia shapes the ways in which we ii record and remember in, with, and through archives. With attention to the intersections of gender, sexuality, race, class, and ability, my inquiry focuses on the historical development of these collections, the connections of activists to their materials, and archivists’ relationships to the communities implicated in their records. I also analyze contemporary activists’ and artists’ creative use and reuse of these archival records to produce knowledge, provoke dialogue, preserve legacies, and support ongoing movements to end HIV/AIDS. These archives, which often center gay, white, middle class men, translate the past in and for the present, shaping collective memories and dominant historical narratives. Such memory practices and narratives in turn shape future possibilities. An analysis of the data collected through ethnographic fieldwork resulted in the rich description of these phenomena that is fundamental to the project of building theory around the concept of nostalgia. The nostalgias produced and reproduced by these archives and their materials infuse and constrain present HIV/AIDS activism, cultural productions, and the lives and life chances of those living with HIV and AIDS. This dissertation demonstrates that archives and critical nostalgia in combination are an essential means to reflect on the past in the contextualized manner necessary to for fostering communal identity and direct action in the present and future. Ultimately, a responsible and ethical scholarship and activist archiving practice must harness critical nostalgia to actively engage and to serve the archives constituencies with an eye to the present and future. iii The dissertation of Marika Louise Cifor is approved. Jonathan Furner Anne J. Gilliland Kate Eichhorn Michelle Caswell, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2017 iv This dissertation is dedicated to my participants and to all who fight. v Table of Contents Chapter One: Introduction: Nostalgia, Archives, and AIDS Activism.................................... 1 Introduction............................................................................................................................................. 1 HIV/AIDS and its Activism: A Short History...................................................................................... 5 Nostalgia and AIDS Archives ................................................................................................................ 8 Methodological Approach and Research Design............................................................................... 19 Chapter Layout..................................................................................................................................... 29 Study Limitations.................................................................................................................................. 34 References.............................................................................................................................................. 35 Chapter Two: Home/Not Home: ACT UP, Ethics, and Ongoing Relations.......................... 43 Introduction........................................................................................................................................... 43 Literature Review ................................................................................................................................. 46 Nostalgia: A Longing for Home......................................................................................................... 46 Dwelling in the Archives: Archives, Homes, and Relations of Care................................................. 49 Archiving Activism, Archiving AIDS................................................................................................ 53 The ACT UP/NY Records: Formation, Home, and Ongoing Relations .......................................... 60 The “Impulse to Archive” .................................................................................................................. 62 The Search for an Archival Home...................................................................................................... 71 Appraisal and Acquisition.................................................................................................................. 75 In the Archives ................................................................................................................................... 80 Why We Fight .................................................................................................................................... 84 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................. 94 References.............................................................................................................................................. 95 Chapter Three: “Your Nostalgia is Killing Me!” ACT UP Nostalgia, Historical Narratives and their Meaning in the Present ............................................................................................ 102 Introduction......................................................................................................................................... 102 Literature Review ............................................................................................................................... 106 AIDS Historiography ....................................................................................................................... 106 Memory and Archives...................................................................................................................... 112 “Your Nostalgia is Killing Me!” ........................................................................................................ 117 Inspiration and Creation ................................................................................................................... 117 Nostalgia........................................................................................................................................... 125 Circulation and Response................................................................................................................. 129 ACT UP Now....................................................................................................................................... 137 References............................................................................................................................................ 146 Chapter Four: The Cure: Nostalgia, Affect, Preservation and The Archive Project as Cure ..................................................................................................................................................... 153 Introduction......................................................................................................................................... 153 The Archive Project and the Cure .................................................................................................... 155 The Archive Project as a Fix ............................................................................................................ 159 The Archive Project as Curing ......................................................................................................... 175 The Archive Project as Care............................................................................................................
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