Infectious Rhythm

Metaphors of Contagion and the Spread of African Culture

Barbara Browning

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Topic: Social Sciences
• eBook ISBN:
  9781136051906
• Subtopic: Popular Culture in Art
• Index: Social Sciences

Barbara Browning follows the trail of "infectious rhythm" from the ecstatic percussion of a Brazilian carnival group to the eerily silent video image of the LAPD beating a man like a drum. Throughout, she identifies the metaphoric strain of contagion which both celebrates the diasporic spread of African culture, and serves as the justification for its brutal repression.

The essays in this book examine both the vital and violent ways in which recent associations have been made between the AIDS pandemic and African diasporic cultural practices, including religious worship, music, dance, sculpture, painting, orature, literature and film. While pointing to the lengthy and complex history of the metaphor of African contagion, Browning argues that in its politicized, life-affirming embodiment, the figure might actually teach us to respond to epidemia humanely.

INDEX

ACT-UP, 9, 149

ACT UP/NY Women & AIDS Book Group, 200n43

AIDS (see also HIV), 129, 131, 133, 146, 148, 149,

activism, 9, 11, 36, 176

alternative therapies for, xii, xiv

characteristics of, 20

education, 15, 28, 176–77, 180–85

epidemiological narratives of, 9, 51–53, 67, 89

explicit versus implicit referencing of, 48, 169–70

exploitation and, 4, 15, 23, 68, 72–73, 75, 153

identity, difference and, 10–12, 121, 132, 142, 146, 150, 211n37

in Africa, 10, 13, 17, 29, 61, 64–65, 68, 71–79

in the Caribbean, 17

in Haiti, 10, 89, 98, 100

in the Third World, 52, 60

in the U.S., xi–xiii, 10, 17, 23, 29, 156

indiscretion and, 129, 175

medical treatment of, xi–xiv, 8, 26

monies for, 108, 118

non-Western treatment of, 8, 68, 71–85

pandemic, 7, 12, 18, 23, 136–37, 150, 176

race of researchers and physicians, 108

Reagan and, 152–53

significance of, 23, 25, 27, 31

source of computer virus metaphor, 132

violence against perceived “victims” of, 169

women and:, see women and AIDS/HIV

worldwide, 72, 73

AIDS and Accusation: Haiti and the Geography of Blame, 195n17, n22; 204n9, 206n2, n3

AIDS: The Burdens of History, 19...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Full Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• CONTENTS
• Acknowledgements
• Preface
• INTRODUCTION: “Haiti Is Here/ Haiti Is Not Here”
• ONE: Babaluaiyé: Diaspora As Pandemic
• TWO: Compact World
• THREE: Lutte contre les moustiques: The Question of Irony
• FOUR: African Medicine Men
• FIVE: Voodoo Economics
• SIX: Mixing Bloods: The L.A. Riots
• SEVEN: Cyberspace, Voodoo Sex, and Retroviral Identity
• EIGHT: Benetton: Blood Is Big Business
• NINE: Penetrable Selves (“Paris Is Burning”)
• TEN: The Closed Body
• Notes
• Index