In this gripping memoir of the AIDS years (1981-1996), Sarah Schulman recalls how much of the rebellious queer culture, cheap rents, and a vibrant downtown arts movement vanished almost overnight to be replaced by gay conservative spokespeople and mainstream consumerism. Schulman takes us back to her Lower East Side and brings it to life, filling these pages with vivid memories of her avant-garde queer friends and dramatically recreating the early years of the AIDS crisis as experienced by a political insider. Interweaving ...
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In this gripping memoir of the AIDS years (1981-1996), Sarah Schulman recalls how much of the rebellious queer culture, cheap rents, and a vibrant downtown arts movement vanished almost overnight to be replaced by gay conservative spokespeople and mainstream consumerism. Schulman takes us back to her Lower East Side and brings it to life, filling these pages with vivid memories of her avant-garde queer friends and dramatically recreating the early years of the AIDS crisis as experienced by a political insider. Interweaving personal reminiscence with cogent analysis, Schulman details her experience as a witness to the loss of a generation's imagination and the consequences of that loss.
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Add this copy of The Gentrification of the Mind: Witness to a Lost to cart. $44.33, good condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2012 by University of California Press.
Add this copy of The Gentrification of the Mind: Witness to a Lost to cart. $75.91, new condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2012 by University of California Press.
If you lived through the aftermath of the "plague years" of the AIDS crisis in the US and wonder where all the passion of those times went, you should read this excellent (if somewhat meandering) memoir of the last 20-odd years by Sarah Schulman. She puts words to that haunting feeling of anomie that some of us feel, surviving that era and wondering why and how the community seemed to evaporate.
After reading this book I lent it to a young friend who's in a doctoral program in cultural studies. He said it's inspiring, and I am hopeful that Sarah Schulman's message of survival and resistance to the prevailing cultural norms affects the work he's doing.