Emily Hobson: Analyzing the AIDS Quilt in prisons

Title

Analyzing the AIDS Quilt in prisons

Mentor

Department

Biosketch

Emily Hobson is a historian of social justice movements in the United States, 1945-present, focused on LGBTQ politics, HIV/AIDS, and prison activism. An Associate Professor of History at the ҹɫ��Ƶ and a faculty associate in Gender, Race, and Identity, she is the author or co-editor of two books, Lavender and Red: Liberation and Solidarity in the Gay and Lesbian Left (2016) and Remaking Radicalism: A Grassroots Documentary Reader of the United States, 1973-2001 (2020). Her current research examines the history of HIV/AIDS activism by, for, and with people incarcerated in the United States. Work from this project has been published in Signs, Radical History Review, QED, Sinister Wisdom, The Abolitionist, and Truthout, and has been supported with fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Humanities Center, the ONE Archives Foundation, and Smith College, among other sources. Hobson is a former co-chair of the LGBTQ+ History Association and a past member of the national and executive councils of the American Studies Association. She received her Ph.D. and M.A. in American Studies and Ethnicity from the University of Southern California, and her B.A. in History and Literature from Harvard and Radcliffe Colleges.

Project overview

In this project, the Pack Research Experience Program (PREP) student will collect and analyze images and archival materials associated with panels of the AIDS Memorial Quilt that were made by, or in support of, incarcerated people with HIV/AIDS during the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s in the United States. The PREP student will be trained in using online research databases, storing research files, tracking information about AIDS quilt panels and associated research materials in Excel, and identifying and compiling information about local, regional, and national grant opportunities that support exhibits of public history. These tools will be used to develop a community-engaged exhibit of AIDS Quilt panels made by incarcerated people that builds on Hobson’s book in process entitled AIDS and Abolition: Fighting the Epidemic in the Prison Boom. The exhibit in development is planned for display in sites around the United States in AY2027-28 and AY2028-29. In preparation for the exhibit, the student will collect research materials from databases of the Library of Congress and AIDS Memorial Quilt; compile files in a cloud storage platform; and enter salient details for each quilt in an Excel database. Additionally, the PREP student will be trained in humanities skills of analyzing the quilts’ origins, contents, visual style and messages, and gaps in the archival record.

This PREP project will be of interest to all those interested in the social, cultural, and political impacts of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, as well as those interested in issues of mass incarceration, prison activism, social justice organizing, the cultural impacts of grief and memorialization, and public health. The AIDS Memorial Quilt is the world’s best-known memorial to people who have died of AIDS. First displayed on the US National Mall in 1987, it has come to include over 50,000 panels and to memorialize hundreds of thousands of people. Panels made by and on behalf of incarcerated people represent a small fraction of the AIDS Memorial Quilt, but offer an invaluable and understudied record of the impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic writ large.

Student Training Opportunities

Using online research databases for historical and humanities research
Storing research files in accordance with security practices and research ethics
Tracking historical and cultural information in an Excel database
Identifying and compiling information about grant funding opportunities
Humanities skills of analyzing origins, contents, rhetoric, and gaps in archival materials

Required Qualifications

All students interested will be considered, but majors or minors in History or Gender, Race, and Identity, and/or students who have taken or are currently taking courses in GRI and/or HIST will be given particular consideration.

Maximum hours per week

The PREP student will be expected to work on the project for a maximum of 10 hours per week.

Pack Research Experience Program information and application