Speaking Through Silence: A Public Conference on HIV/AIDS Histories

9 am-5 pm
Friday, March 18, 2022
Memorial Art Gallery

This is a free event; registration is required. Register here!

This conference features scholars of HIV/AIDS history alongside medical practitioners and activists from the Central New York region sharing their knowledge and experience of HIV/AIDS treatment, prevention, care, representation, and memory. Historian Jennie Brier and graphic designer Matthew Wizinsky will give the keynote, “I’m Still Surviving: Towards a Women’s History of HIV/AIDS in the United States.” Artist, writer, and activist Avram Finkelstein will offer a response to the keynote. Panels include “HIV in Black and Brown Communities: What’s Going On?”; “HIV at the Intersection of Art and Activism”; and “Public Health Harm Reduction: Lessons from the HIV/AIDS Epidemic”.

The conference will also include presentations by Jessica Lacher-Feldman, curator of the University of Rochester AIDS Education Poster Collection and Donald Albrecht, curator of Up Against the Wall: Art, Activism, and the AIDS Poster. Panelists include Patricia Coury-Doniger, Ted Kerr, Mical Raz, Benita Roth, Diane Morse, Alexis Pleus, Jeffery McCune and Laura Stamm.

The conference is free and open to the public, but registration is required. Register here!

You may contact conference co-organizers [email href=”tamar.carroll@rit.edu”]Tamar Carroll[/email] and [email href=”svider@cornell.edu”]Stephen Vider[/email] with any questions.

Sponsored by the Central New York Humanities Corridor from an award by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and by the University of Rochester Humanities Center. Additional support provided by the Memorial Art Gallery, RIT College of Liberal Arts, the University of Rochester River Campus Libraries, and the Cornell Public History Initiative.

Free admission to the Memorial Art Gallery for conference attendees made possible in part by the LGBT+ Fund for Greater Rochester at Rochester Area Community Foundation.

8:30-9 am — Registration/Check-In

Coffee and tea will be provided.

9-9:15 am — Welcome

Jonathan P. Binstock, Mary W. and Donald R. Clark Director, Memorial Art Gallery

9:15-10:15 am — Keynote Address: “I’m Still Surviving: Towards a Women’s History of HIV/AIDS in the United States.”

Jennie Brier, Professor of History, University of Illinois, Chicago
Matthew Wizinsky, School of Design, University of Cincinnati

The keynote will be followed by a response from Avram Finkelstein, author of After Silence: A History of AIDS through Its Images.

10:15-10:30 am — Break

10:30-11:45 am — Panel: “HIV in Black and Brown Communities: What’s Going On?”

Moderator: Tamar Carroll, Associate Professor and Chair, Department of History, Rochester Institute of Technology

Panelists:

• Aishah Scott, Assistant Professor of Health Policy and Management and Black Studies, Providence College
• Dr. Natalie Leblanc, Assistant Professor of Nursing and the Harriet J. Kitzman Endowed Fellow in Health Disparities at the University of Rochester School of Nursing
• Patricia Coury-Doniger, Founder of the Center for Community Practice at the University of Rochester

11:45 am-1 pm — Lunch/Collection and Exhibition Overview

Boxed lunches will be provided for those who registered before March 13; lunch will also be available for purchase at museum restaurant Brown Hound Downtown.

Presenters:

• Jessica Lacher-Feldman, Curator, University of Rochester AIDS Education Poster Collection
• Donald Albrecht, Curator, Up Against the Wall: Art, Activism and the AIDS Poster

All attendees are invited to view the exhibition after the presentation.

1-2:30 pm — Panel: “HIV/AIDS Activism at the Intersection of Art and Protest”

Moderator: Stephen Vider, Assistant Professor and Director of the Public History Initiative, Department of History, Cornell University

Panelists:

• Ted Kerr, Former Program Manager of Visual AIDS and founding member of What Would an HIV Doula Do?
• Jeffrey Q. McCune, Jr., Director, Frederick Douglass Institute of African & African-American Studies, and Frederick Douglass Associate Professor of African American Literature and Culture, Department of English, University of Rochester
• Laura Stamm, Director of DEI, Department of Medicine, University of Rochester
• Avram Finkelstein, author of After Silence: A History of AIDS through Its Images

2:30-3 pm — Break

3-4:30 pm — Panel: “Public Health Harm Reduction: Lessons from the HIV/AIDS Epidemic”

Moderator: Mical Raz, Professor in Public Policy and Health, Department of History, University of Rochester

Panelists:

• Benita Roth, Professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Sociology, Binghamton University
• Diane Morse, Associate Professor, University of Rochester Medical Center
• Alexis Pleus, Executive Director, Truth Pharm
• Valerie Reyes-Jimenez, activist

4:30-5 pm — Closing Remarks