Friday October 4, 2019
Pre-conference Workshop — 9am to 12pm
Clair Kronk, University of Cincinnati College of Medicine,
Charlie Macquarie, Digital Archivist, UCSF Library
Rebecca Tang, Programmer, UCSF Library, Center for Knowledge Management
Joanna Kang, Program and Marketing Coordinator, UCSF Library
Welcome — 12:55pm
Polina E. Ilieva, UCSF Archives and Special Collections
Opening Remarks — 1pm
Dr. Paul A. Volberding, UCSF Professor Emeritus of Medicine, Director of UCSF AIDS Research Institute
Keynotes — 1:15pm
Before the Beginning and Beyond: Reflections of a Young (at the time) Gay Doc at the Epicenter — 1:15pm
Dr. Donald I. Abrams, UCSF Professor of Clinical Medicine, general oncologist at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, and integrative oncologist at the UCSF Osher Center for Integrative Medicine
The Importance of Biomedical Science in Controlling Epidemics — 1:45pm
Dr. Jay A. Levy, UCSF Professor of Medicine, Director of the Laboratory for Tumor and AIDS Virus Research
Break
2:30pm to 2:45pm
Panel 1: Silent No More — 2:45pm to 4pm
Invisible in a Time of Crisis: Women, Surveillance Definitions, and Rhetorical Possibilities in the AIDS Epidemic’s First Decade
Hillary Ash, University of Pittsburgh
Pint-size Attention: Why Histories of AIDS in the United States need to include Children
Jason Chernesky, University of Pennsylvania, History and Sociology of Science
Between 1983 and 1997, a network of health care providers “which included nurses, social workers, grandmothers, siblings, and foster parents” labored to maintain the health of children with HIV-AIDS. Through their work, I specifically show how children experienced the disease differently from that of adults. Exploring the history of pediatric AIDS also moves us beyond merely mixing in children to the standard narratives about the epidemic. We must contend with the experience of pediatric AIDS patients and their families because it compels us to interrogate the relationship between inner-city families and AIDS-care institutions, as well as the social value, economic dimensions, and political context of care networks in the late twentieth century.
“Look Book in Anger”: Hemophilia-AIDS Activism and the Paradox of Revenge-Effects
Stephen Pemberton, New Jersey Institute of Technology
This presentation outlines the varieties of hemophilia activism that emerged before, during and after the “bad blood” controversies of the 1980s and 1990s. It articulates what was distinctive about this form of AIDS activism, and how the cultural framing of hemophilia-AIDS shaped the paradoxical outcomes that activists encountered.
Undoing NostalgiAIDS: Viewing and Thinking Differently About AIDS Documentaries
Alberto Sandoval-Sanchez, Bennett Boskey, Distinguished Visiting Professor of Latina/o Studies at William College and Emeritus Professor of Latina/o Studies at Mount Holyoke College
My notion of “NostalgiAIDS” positions mainstream documentaries in a nostalgic and affective atemporality in stark contrast with the intersectional politics of/for survival among Latina/o communities during the AIDS crisis. In my comparative reading I think critically about the Latina/o gay and lesbian AIDS experience, AIDS and the politics of decolonization, and the historical contextualization of Latina/o multiple oppressions and social forces that interrupt and implode the linear temporality of AIDS in given relations of power.
Panel 2: AIDS in San Francisco — 4:15pm to 5:30pm
Love is Stronger than Death: Making Meaning of AIDS in the Sermons of Rev. Jim Mitulski
Lynne Gerber, Independent Scholar
This paper draws on the Metropolitan Community Church of San Francisco’s audio archive to look at sermons as real-time narration of the AIDS crisis and to trace the ways Rev. Jim Mitulski used them to make meaning of sexuality, loss, grief, and healing in the years before the cocktail.
Breaking Through the Break-Up: Investigating “The Split” Between ACT UP San Francisco and ACT UP Golden Gate
Eric Sneathen, University of California, Santa Cruz; GLBT Historical Society
In this presentation, I will draw on my experiences as the Director of the ACT UP Oral History Project (an ongoing effort to record, preserve, and broadcast to the public personal histories of direct action activism related to the AIDS crisis in San Francisco and the greater Bay Area) to examine different representations of the “the split” between ACT UP San Francisco and ACT UP Golden Gate.
Documenting Discrimination: Lorraine Day, M.D. as Historical Subject, Bioethical Case Study, and Ongoing Threat
Andrea Milne, Case Western Reserve University
This paper addresses the methodological and ethical challenges I face writing about Lorraine Day, M.D., who during her tenure as the Chief of Orthopedic Surgery at San Francisco General Hospital became a nationwide advocate for policies that discriminated against patients with HIV/AIDS.
Some Beauty and Meaning from These Ashes: AIDS, Intimacy, and Everyday Experience in 20th Century America
Maya Overby Koretzky, History of Medicine Department, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
This paper explores the diversity of HIV patient experiences at San Francisco General Hospital through Rebecca Ranson’s 1984 play Warren. Ranson’s source material for the play, the script, and its reception reveal tensions between individual patient illness experiences and the queer activist project of the genre of the AIDS play.
Reception
5:30pm to 7pm
Saturday October 5, 2019
Panel 3: Biomedical Research — 9am to 10:15am
Methods Matter: Equipoise along the pathway from early epidemic HIV research methods to implementation science methods focused on health disparities
Margaret Handley, UCSF Faculty in Epidemiology and Biostatistics and Medicine at the Center for Vulnerable Populations at ZSFGH; Co-Director UCSF Program in Implementation Science
One of the core principals of the recently emerging field of implementation science, the translation of evidence into routine practice for improving health, focuses on ensuring interventions are adapted to close evidence-practice gaps in the reach of interventions, and to not exacerbate these gaps for hardly reached populations experiencing health disparities. Understanding the research narratives of the HIV epidemic has important implications for retaining an equipoise-focused lens on the relationship between research methods and engaging with hardly reached populations-critical views for the conduct of intervention research in implementation science.
I ain’t ready to die: HIV and Aging among Black Men who have sex with Men
Judy Tan, Division of Prevention Science | University of California, San Francisco Center for AIDS Prevention Studies (CAPS) | UCSF Prevention Research Center
Black MSM aging and living with HIV in the Bay Area constitute a growing population with unique needs. A total of 12 Black MSM living with HIV age 50 or older completed in-person, semi-structured interviews exploring issues of aging and HIV. Findings underscored a need for promoting models of healthy aging relevant to Black men living with HIV.
A Historical Perspective on Contact Tracing During the HIV Epidemic
Arthur Amman, Founder Global Strategies for HIV Prevention, Global Health Sciences Affiliate Faculty Member, University of California, San Francisco Medical Center; Ethics in Health
Contact tracing was limited as a consequence of stigmatization and discrimination and possible loss of confidentiality. An estimated 10 million individuals do not know that they are HIV-infected denying millions of fundamental rights to health care. CT is the gateway to equitable access to lifesaving prevention and treatment of HIV.
Three studies in San Francisco — the AIDS cohort studies of 1983
Andrew Moss, UCSF Emeritus Professor of Epidemiology
Three cohort studies of gay and bisexual men in San Francisco were started in 1983 — the City Clinic Study funded by the CDC, the Men’s Health Study, funded by NIAID and the San Francisco General Hospital Study, funded by the State of California. With the discovery of the virus, cohort studies became the backbone of epidemiological research on HIV infection. The cohort studies were the first to show the real nature of HIV infection — the dramatic extent of infection, the progressive loss of CD4+ T cells, the ten-year long incubation period — radically changing the way the disease was seen. After a decade or more of this competitive-collaborative research enterprise, the three cohorts were merged into a single supercohort. (The author was principal investigator of the San Franciso General Hospital Study.)
Break
10:15am to 10:30am
Panel 4: Silences in the History and the Archive — 10:30am to 11:30am
Privilege and Silence: ACT UP, the Majority Action Committee, and Insurgent Transcripts of the AIDS Clinical Trial Groups
George Aumoithe
Obituary Parlor Games: Collecting and Analyzing Obituaries as Sources for Understanding the AIDS Epidemic
Elizabeth Alice Clement
Beyond Formal Equality: Closeted Bureaucrats, AIDS Policy-making and the Straight State in California
Stephen Colbrook
This panel brings together three papers focusing on the theme of silence in the historical narratives of AIDS. In addition to remedying those silences, the papers make connections between them and the gaps in the archival materials, arguing for an expansion of the kinds of materials preserved in collections. Ben Barr, commentator.
Poster Presentations — 11:30am to 12:15pm
The San Francisco Bay Area’s Response to the AIDS Epidemic: Digitizing, Reuniting, and Providing Universal Access to Historical AIDS Records
UCSF Archives and Special Collections, San Francisco Public Library History Center, GLBT Historical Society, UC Merced Library
Preserving individual stories of science: HIV/AIDS through the scientists, researchers, advocates and historians lenses
Ludmila Pollock, Executive Director, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Library & Archives
Affected or Infected: an interactive exhibition on the history of HIV in Uganda
Rachel King, UCSF global Health Sciences, Uganda
Where are the records of women living with HIV/AIDS?
Julie Botnick, UCLA Biomedical Library, National Network of Libraries of Medicine, Pacific Southwest Region/UCLA June L. Mazer Lesbian Archives
‘Look at the Whole Family’: Black Women Confronting the AIDS Epidemic in the Bay Area, 1981-1991
Antoine S. Johnson, Ph.D. Candidate in UCSF’s History of Health Sciences program
Lunch
12:15pm to 1:15pm
Panel 5: AIDS and the Power of Art — 1:15pm to 2:30pm
Documenting from Inside the Pandemic: AIDS and the Power of Art
Nancer Lemoins, KALA Institute
Sharon Siskin
Jeannie O’Connor
This panel will focus on the power of art to speak authentically from inside of historical events, in general, and from inside the AIDS epidemic in the San Francisco Bay Area from the 1980s to present, specifically. The three artists who will be presenting on our panel will tell their stories from inside the epidemic, through a slide presentation of images and possibly very short video clips, that illustrate and make evident the ways in which the process and products of visual art can speak to deeply personal experiences of confronting AIDS during that time.
Archive as Cure: The Promises of Visual AIDS Activist Archiving
Marika Cifor, Information School, University of Washington
This paper examines activist archiving as part of a holistic HIV/AIDS cure that the epidemic demands. Visual AIDS Archive Project is open to all who self-identify as artists and as HIV-positive. Through an archival ethnography I examine the material and conceptual affordances and limitations of community archives as anti-AIDS activism.
Break
2:30pm to 2:45pm
Panel 6: AIDS and Education — 2:45pm to 3:45pm
Mobilizing the Archive: HIV/AIDS and the Multimedia Experience in the Classroom and Beyond
Roger Eardley-Pryor reading a paper by Paul Burnett with Sally Smith Hughes
Oral History Center, Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley
In the mid-1990s, historian of science Sally Smith Hughes embarked on a project to document health professionals’ early response to the HIV-AIDS epidemic. Recently, the Oral History Center has begun to develop new content from these 35 interviews. This presentation explores our strategies for reaching new audiences with new technology.
Embedding HIV into the Undergraduate College Course
Shan-Estelle Brown, Assistant Professor of Anthropology. Co-coordinator, Global Health Program, Rollins College
Twitter @sbrown279
Undergraduate students represent an important population because they are personally dealing with the impacts of their own sexual education and may eventually work in careers that impact people with HIV. I advocate for HIV information and narratives being purposefully embedded in versatile undergraduate curricula to progress toward health equity.
Face of AIDS Film Archive — Documenting the history of HIV and AIDS on film
Staffan Hildebrand, Face of AIDS Film Archive, Karolinska Institutet University Library, Stockholm, Sweden
The Swedish documentary film producer Staffan Hildebrand has been documenting the global fight against HIV and AIDS since 1986.The result is the Face of AIDS Film Archive, owned and curated by Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm. In his presentation, Mr. Hildebrand will show milestone examples from the fight against HIV and AIDS, which he and his various cameramen has filmed during more than three decades.
Closing Remarks — 3:45pm to 4:15pm
Past and Future of HIV in San Francisco
Dr. Monica Gandhi, Director of UCSF-Gladstone Center for AIDS Research (CFAR), Associate Chief, Division of HIV, Infectious Diseases and Global Medicine, Medical Director of “Ward 86” HIV Clinic at SFGH