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

About This Event

This conference, in conjunction with the Memorial Art Gallery’s exhibition, Up Against the Wall: Art, Activism, and the AIDS Poster (March 6 – June 19), 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.

University of Illinois at Chicago historian Jennie Brier will give the keynote, “I’m Still Surviving: Towards a Women’s History of HIV/AIDS in the United States.” 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, followed by a tour of the exhibition. Panelists include Patricia Coury-Doniger, Gary English, 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. Tickets are available now! If you register before March 7, 2022, free lunch is available. Post March March 7, 2022, lunch is available for purchase.

All attendees agree to follow the COVID-19 policies.

Featured Guests

9 – 9:15 am — Welcome

Jonathan Binstock, Director of the 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

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
• Mitchel Wharton, Associate Dean for Equity and Inclusion at the University of Rochester School of Nursing
• Patricia Coury-Doniger, Founder of the Center for Community Practice at the University of Rochester
• Gary English, Founder of the Men of Color Health Awareness Center

11:45 am – 1 pm — Lunch for all attendees will be served during the “Collection and Exhibition Overview”

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 Founder of What Would an HIV Doula Do?
• Jeffrey McCune, Director of the Frederic Douglas Institute for African and African American Studies at University of Rochester
• Laura Stamm, Director of DEI, Department of Medicine, University of Rochester

2:30 – 2:45 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

4:30 – 5:30 pm — Closing Remarks

Co-sponsors

University of Rochester Humanities Center, Rochester Institute of Technology Department of History, Rochester Institute of Technology College of Liberal Arts, Memorial Art Gallery, and the University of Rochester River Campus Libraries.

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.