Category: Staff

Posted on

My Fellow Prisoners: On John McCain

Photograph: McCain waiting for the rest of the group to leave the bus at airport after being released as POW. Record Group 428, General Records of the Department of the Navy, 1947-2004, Citation: 428-GX Box 262 N 11556665, Rediscovery #10473 10473_2007_001

From our own George Blaustein’s essay in n+1 on the mythologies of John McCain, from the captivity narrative to imperial adventure tale to the hard-boiled prose of Ernest Hemingway:

The interesting thing about McCain was not his politics, which were, by and large, predictably Republican. His sanctimony masked nepotism, self-interest, and political expediency. His concrete political legacy is not the timeless virtue of sacrifice, but catastrophic war. Yet for decades he has remained interesting as a figure of myth, and that mythology invites something like a literary analysis. One is speaking here less of McCain himself than of McCainology. It is a slippery subject; McCainology usually says as much about the McCainologist as it does about McCain. The aura of a unique ordeal followed him from his captivity in Vietnam into politics, and McCain himself (the first and most devoted McCainologist) cultivated that aura. The question of authenticity has been McCainology’s main preoccupation, but it is a red herring. I am asking other questions: if McCain were a fictional character, which he kind of was, then what is his story about? And when was it written? And why did we read it?

Read the essay here: https://nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/my-fellow-prisoners/

Posted on

Voices of the Epidemic

It has been more than thirty years since people were first diagnosed with AIDS in the Netherlands. Since then, we have learnt how to prevent the spread of HIV and to prolong the lives of those who are HIV positive. Yet as the early years of crisis fade from memory, we face a new era of infection, with ongoing inequalities that put some at higher risk of contracting the virus, and which prevent others from accessing affordable care. In collaboration with former students at the University of Amsterdam, Professor Manon Parry has produced a film, Voices of the Epidemic, which asks people who have been involved since the very beginning to reflect on their experiences and the lessons we still need to learn from the history of HIV and AIDS.

Approx. 25 minutes long, in Dutch with English subtitles. Funded by the Amsterdam School for Historical Studies and the Amsterdam Centre for Heritage and Identity at the University of Amsterdam, and the Public Health Service of Amsterdam.

Production team: Manon S. Parry (University of Amsterdam), Hugo Schalkwijk (Oude Wasgoed) and Paul de Jong, Marlinde Venema and Machiel Spruijt (Jaar en Dag Media)

Voices of the Epidemic premiered at the Amsterdam Museum and in the Global Village of the International AIDS Society conference in Amsterdam in July 2018 and is available online.