On Thursday, Jan. 26, Eastern Mennonite University hosted its annual Keim Lecture Series. This year’s speaker was Clayton Koppes, a retired professor from Oberlin College. He lectured on HIV/AIDS and mainly how it was handled in the United States, a subject he has been researching for a book he is writing about the history of HIV/AIDS in the United States and its comparative reaction to the pandemic. Using both conventional and non-conventional sources for his research, he is trying to provide people with perspectives of the HIV/AIDS pandemic that may have gone unheard. HIV/AIDS hurt the United Starts a lot, according to Koppes.
The first case of HIV/AIDS in the United States was found in 1981 by a Los Angeles professor. At the time, it was called “gay cancer.” It did not start getting attention from outside the Queer community until around 1985. The diagnosis of Hollywood star Rock Hudson caused the country to start paying more attention to the epidemic. Koppes talked about a truncated vocabulary towards HIV/AIDS. That meant that people did not talk about it how they should and tried to water things down, which ended up making things worse.
One of the main points Koopes emphasized in his lecture was that it was not just white gay men that were affected by this. People of color, especially women, were affected by this, and those groups of people are usually forgotten about when talking about AIDS.
Senior Tace Martin was at the lecture and said, “I thought it was probably the best guest lecture I’ve attended at EMU.” Martin commented on how well the lecture was done and that it was very well-researched, saying, “this was the first time I had heard it referred to as a pandemic.”
Sophomore Ella Brubaker said she enjoyed the lecture and found it interesting. Brubaker also noted that she “liked learning more about the history of AIDS activism movements and the development of treatment options.” Mary Sprunger, head of the History and Political Science Programs, talked about the history of the Keim Lecture Series and why they chose Clayton Koopes this year. Started in 2013 by Sprunger, it was named after former history professor and Dean Albert Keim, with the support of his family. Sprunger said, “most of the other departments had annual lecture series, so we wanted to try to get one started for the history department.” Sprunger wanted to give history and political science majors a chance to talk and interact with people who were experts in their fields. Sprunger said, “I invited Clayton Koppes to campus because I wanted this generation to learn more about the HIV/AIDS pandemic and how the stigma around it hampered the public health response. I also thought it was timely given our recent Covid pandemic experience.”
