Ambivalent Emotions: Conflicts and convergences in dealing with AIDS

In the early 1980s, when the so-called “gay disease” began to spread throughout the western world (starting in the United States), there was soon talk of “AIDS hysteria.” It was suggested that emotions – especially anxiety – prevented a rational and reasonable approach to the disease and the risk of infection. The relevance of emotions in dealing with aids was and is still often emphasized (e.g., in awareness training and prevention work). AIDS and HIV did not only induce anxiety, however. Grief, anger, and shame also seemed and still seem to be highly relevant for patients, their relatives and friends, for the social environment and political protagonists. This project focuses on these ambivalent emotions and approaches to AIDS and HIV. Thus, AIDS and HIV serve as an example for the analysis of the ambivalence and plurality of emotions in situations that seemed to be coded clearly. To this end, I will ask how particular emotions were politicized in the context of AIDS. How, for example, were specific emotions described and constituted as natural consequences of dangers and risks? And how was this thinking questioned? Which roles did specific emotions play? And, more importantly, what were the political effects? The main focus of the project is on Germany in the 1980s and 1990s.