| Reading the News produces a conjunction between theories of audience and reception for mediated texts and cultural analysis of the proliferation of "panic logic"--ascribable to the AIDS epidemic but that AIDS is not responsible for--which has produced increasing demand for prophylactic mediation. In other words, it charts the vexed interconnectedness of forms of communication and communicability. The first part of this dissertation, "Strategies for Reading," presents theoretical models for working through the conundrums produced by the configuration of inherited cultural ideas informing the construction of the story that is the subject of the second part, "The Making of a Virgin.".;The three chapters that comprise "Strategies for Reading" focus on the production and use of theory and evidence within the disciplines of science, history, and literary criticism. I return to these theoretical issues in "The Making of a Virgin" to present the case study of Kimberly Bergalis and Dr. David Acer. The three chapters in this section critically examine the consequences of "panic logic" to the production of a narrative about the transmission of HIV and the gendered contraction of AIDS.;As a consequence of these investigations, Reading the News raises questions about survival and storytelling that, although specific to survival and storytelling in the context of the AIDS epidemic, inform and are informed by questions about survival and storytelling raised in other contexts. Without intending to trivialize the complexities confounding survival of culturally traumatic events like racialized slavery, Nazi genocide, and the AIDS epidemic, this dissertation poses a challenge to survivors to reconceive their role as responsible historical subjects. It is my contention that responsible survival entails a commitment to cultural engagements and critique that actively undermine perpetuation of constructed, representational, bodily violence and abuse. Reading the News evolves out of this investment and the possibilities for those who live through irremediable historical events to reconstruct the conditions of survival. |
