Andrew Blades

Description

Dr. Blades researches twentieth-century American literature, and more specifically the intersection between medicine and literature. The question of AIDS and history, and how the early years of the epidemic are being historicised, is a particular interest: He has published an article on John Weir's fiction in this context, and for the last two years have been involved in World AIDS Day events with Bristol's HIV/AIDS organisation, the Brigstowe Project. Other research interests include queer / LGBTQ+ writing, and recent representations of the 1980s in British and American fiction. He is also co-editor of a collection of essays, Poetry and the Dictionary (Liverpool University Press, 2020), which considers the relationship between poetry and lexicography.

On 8 March 2023, he presented a paper at with the title "Modes of Transmission: Covid-19, HIV and Poetry" at SOL's English unit as part of the joint seminar about "Immunity and Community: Networks of Transmission" together with William May, University of Southampton.

Abstract: "In one of his journal entries, from 1929, W.H. Auden wrote: ‘Infectious diseases: a sign of the unconscious sense of unity between men’. In the three years since Covid-19 was first reported, it might have given us frequent pause for thought. Plunged into lockdowns, confined in little talking screens, waiting in socially distanced shopping queues, there has been a kind of ‘unity’, perhaps, in the experience of Covid in broad terms; that is to say, while its social and physiological risks and effects have not been evenly distributed across populations or communities, no individual has been unchanged by the virus or by its protracted social repercussions. For so many, adjustments to daily life are a reminder of human interconnection and entanglement. Public health advice and government measures against mixing may depend upon personal observance, but each individual action, be it the wearing of a mask or the decision to vaccinate or resist the jab, carries with it an apprehension of risk and responsibility towards others. Moreover, the systematic separation of people during the pandemic – from families, neighbourhoods, nations – has made clear how porous our boundaries usually are. Human fates interlock, are interdependent: to return to Auden, Covid-19 has made that sense of unity painfully conscious. What, then, is the relationship, between unity and immunity? We will think through this with reference to poetry from the Covid pandemic, and also through some poetry written about HIV/AIDS."

Period	2023 Mar 7 → 2023 Mar 8
Visiting from	University of Bristol (United Kingdom)
Visitor degree	D.Phil (Oxon)
Country/Territory	United Kingdom
Degree of Recognition	International