Weeks ago, we had touched on Foucault’s ideas of bio-power, but I feel it is only this week that these ideas are being played out, in primary sources and fiction. The last time I talked about bio-power was in relation to WWI and the “Keeping Fit to Fight” campaigns that promoted safer sexual activity in […]
Finding Angels in a World of Loss The angelic prophecy has been revealed, and it has been rejected—by its own would-be prophet, Prior Walter. The prophecy is to just stop: to stop moving and migrating and changing, and if that happens, maybe God will return. Prior finds this prophecy a farce at best, dangerous at […]
Beyond the Pleasure Principle First, in the document “Policing Public Sex in a Gay Theater, 1995” (Peiss, 454), I found the degree of detail mandated quite interesting. Not simply “what act,” which would be the only legitimate question in regards to sanitation, but full bodied descriptions, proximity of the voyeur, and the lighting. If an […]
Tony Kushner’s two-part play Angels in America is heavy on sexuality, disease, politics, professional discrimination, religion, race, and gender. The two themes that stick out most to me are sexuality and gender. The portrayal of the Jewish identity as ethnicity versus religion is very realistic for the modern day, and it is not a treatment […]
Response to Angels in America “Roy: Your problem, Henry, is that you are hung up on words, on labels, that you believe they mean what they seem to mean. AIDS. Homosexual. Gay. Lesbian. You think these are names that tell you who someone sleeps with, but they don’t tell you that” (Millennium Approaches, Act 1, […]
Sula (No Other Title Necessary) Last year one of my political science professors was talking about the 2004 presidential election. He mentioned that in a debate between the two VPs (Cheney and Edwards), the two were asked a question about the number of black women in America getting infected with AIDS every year. As my […]
Blood Wanted: No Gay Men Need Apply This past week I went to donate blood for the first time. As I filled out an extensive questionnaire meant to ensure my donated blood would not pass on infectious diseases, I noticed the official list of people who may not donate blood. It banned people with certain […]
