Abstract
Since the beginnings of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, pedagogy has been a crucial survival strategy, especially when government agencies failed to prevent mass deaths. However, contemporary sex education on HIV/AIDS—if taught to undergraduates before they arrive on campus—often does not account for the disproportionate effects of the pandemic on racial minorities and global South countries. In this teaching essay, the author describes how his course on the history of HIV/AIDS takes a global approach to highlight that the AIDS crisis is not over. Starting with histories of HIV/AIDS in the United States, Haiti, China, and elsewhere that sought to find a scapegoat for the pandemic, the course then turns to the global power of the pharmaceutical industry. It examines the marketing and lobbying strategies of companies such as Gilead, which use the stigma of HIV/AIDS to transform impoverished global South countries into new markets for research and capital extraction. Finally, it also highlights how the AIDS crisis remains an ongoing struggle against racial disparities in health care that prevent access to life-saving treatments and preventative drugs such as Truvada and Descovy for pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). Using a range of materials from podcasts to pills, the author introduces students to the globalizing forces that take the bodies of the poor, women, and Black, Latinx, trans, and global South citizens as expendable in the fight against HIV/AIDS.
