{"product_id":"facing-it-leigh-ross-chambers-9780472087488","title":"Facing It: AIDS Diaries and the Death of the Author","description":"For a generation or more, literary theorists have used the metaphor of \"the death of the author\" in considering the observation that to write is to abdicate control over the meanings one's text is capable of generating. But in the case of AIDS diaries, the metaphor can be literal. \u003ci\u003eFacing It\u003c\/i\u003e examines the genre not in classificatory terms but pragmatically, as the site of a social interaction. Through a detailed study of three such diaries, originating respectively in France, the United States, and Australia, Ross Chambers demonstrates that issues concerning the politics of AIDS writing and the ethics of reading are linked by a common concern with the problematics of survivorhood. Two of the diaries chosen for special attention in this light are video diaries: \u003ci\u003eLa Pudeur ou l'impudeur\u003c\/i\u003e by Hervé Guibert (author of \u003ci\u003eTo the Friend Who Did Not Save My Life\u003c\/i\u003e), and \u003ci\u003eSilverlake Life\u003c\/i\u003e, by the American videomaker Tom Joslin (aided by his lover and friends, notably Peter Friedman). The third is a defiant but anxious text, \u003ci\u003eUnbecoming\u003c\/i\u003e, by an American anthropologist, Eric Michaels, who died in Brisbane, Australia, in 1988. Other authors more briefly examined include Pascal de Duve, Bertrand Duquénelle, Alain Emmanuel Dreuilhe, David Wojnarowicz, Gary Fisher, and the filmmaker (not a diarist) Laurie Lynd. Finally, Facing It takes on the issue of its own relevance, asking what contributions literary criticism can make in the midst of an epidemic.\u003cbr\u003e\"Groundbreaking in its approach and potentially wide in its appeal. . . . The rigor of the ideas, their dramatic nature, and the political drive of the rhetoric all should win Facing It a large readership that could extend far beyond students of narrative or queer theory.\" --David Bergman, Towson University, editor of \u003ci\u003eCamp Grounds: Style and Homosexuality\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRoss Chambers is Distinguished University Professor of French and Comparative Literature, University of Michigan, and author of \u003ci\u003eRoom for Maneuver: Reading (the) Oppositional (in) Narrative\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eStory and Situation: Narrative Seduction and the Power of Fiction\u003c\/i\u003e. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Leigh Ross Chambers\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0472087487\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780472087488\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e University of Michigan Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 06\/21\/2001\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 160\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.55lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.70h x 5.58w x 1.18d","brand":"Leigh Ross Chambers","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":48437901230335,"sku":"9780472087488","price":21.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_05ef6c29-8f06-437b-9693-695177f9aeea.jpg?v=1777167544","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/facing-it-leigh-ross-chambers-9780472087488","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}