ACT UP’s fight against AIDS (Book and Podcast)
Learn all about ACT UP's fight against AIDS using emotions and direct action from the book, Moving Politics: Emotions and ACT UP's Fight Against Aids and by listening to an NPR podcast with Sarah Schulman.
Introduction
Learn all about ACT UP’s fight against AIDS using emotions and direct action from the book, Moving Politics: Emotions and ACT UP’s Fight Against Aids and by listening to an NPR podcast with Sarah Schulman.
Moving Politics: Emotions and ACT Up’s Fight Against AIDS (Book)
Book Description
Emotion plays a fundamental role in health activism. From anger to hope, pride to shame, and solidarity to despair, feelings played a significant part in ACT UP’s provocative style of protest, which included raucous demonstrations, die-ins, and other kinds of street theater. Detailing the movement’s public triumphs and private setbacks, Moving Politics is the definitive account of ACT UP’s origin, development, and decline as well as a searching look at the role of emotion in health activism.
“Moving Politics is not just a rich and rigorous history of ACT UP. It is also that rarest of works: one that simultaneously breaks new empirical ground while challenging our more general conceptual understanding of the subject matter. Quite simply, it will be hard for social movement scholars following Gould to ignore the emotional dimensions and dynamics of struggle.” — Doug McAdam, Stanford University
Author information
How to access book
- Preview book in Google
- Borrow from your library – Search WorldCat and put in your location
- Purchase book from the publisher
The direct action of ACT UP helped end AIDS (Podcast)
Introduction
Sam revisits his 2021 conversation with Sarah Schulman about ACT UP. The organization united a diverse, non-partisan group of individuals committed to direct action to end the AIDS crisis. In Schulman’s book, Let The Record Show: A Political History of ACT UP New York, 1987-1993, she draws from nearly 200 interviews with ACT UP members to document the movement’s history and explore how the group’s activism transformed the way the media, the government, corporations and medical professionals talked about AIDS and provided treatment. Schulman and Sam discuss this transformation and its relevance to social movements today.
Listen to Podcast
Listen to this episode on It’s Been a Minute Podcast
Brief about Deborah Gould
Deborah Gould is a renowned sociologist and activist known for her groundbreaking work on political emotions and social movements. She is a Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, with affiliations in Feminist Studies, History of Consciousness, and Politics.
Gould was actively involved in AIDS activism through her work with ACT UP/Chicago and Queer to the Left, where she developed a strong commitment to grassroots organizing. She later co-founded Feel Tank Chicago, a collective that creatively explored the political significance of emotions, particularly through projects like the “International Parade of the Politically Depressed.”
Her acclaimed book, Moving Politics: Emotion and ACT UP’s Fight Against AIDS, is widely recognized for its in-depth analysis of how emotions such as grief, anger, and pride mobilized political action during the AIDS crisis. The book received major academic honors, including the Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship Best Book Award from the American Sociological Association.
Deborah Gould’s ongoing research continues to examine the role of affect in collective action, including projects that focus on appetite, vulnerability, and the unfinished nature of political formation. Her work remains influential in both academic and activist circles for its unique blending of theory and lived experience.
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