Opposing Marginalization Presentation

Opposing Marginalization Presentation

This week’s authors encompass many types of experiences, from the new immigrant experience, to the lives of the socioeconomic underclass of Boston’s Southside, to the work of AIDS activist and playwright Larry Kramer.

For this assignment discuss how contemporary writers oppose the historical marginalization of their respective groups.

Create a*** 10 slide presentation with speaker notes*** that includes discussion of the following:

1. A brief biographical overview of the following two contemporary authors associated with historically marginalized groups: Bharati Mukherjee and Larry Kramer (See Attachments)

2. An examination of the themes and subjects of these two contemporary authors with discussion of specific works from each; how does their work oppose marginalization?

3. An examination of one to two groups that may be categorized as “marginal” and writers associated with these groups. Remember that non-fiction writers, such as bloggers and essayists, may be strongly represented in these groups.

Format your assignment according to appropriate course-level APA guidelines.

Title: Larry Kramer By: Graves, James B., Identities & Issues in Literature,

Database: Literary Reference Center Plus

Larry Kramer Born: June 25, 1935; Bridgeport, Connecticut

Principal Works – Larry Kramer

drama Sissies’ Scrapbook, pr. 1973, revised pr. 1974 (as Four Friends) The Normal Heart, pr., pb. 1985 Just Say No: A Play About a Farce, pr., pb. 1988 The Destiny of Me, pr. 1992, pb. 1993

long fiction Faggots, 1978

nonfiction Reports from the Holocaust: The Making of an AIDS Activist, 1989, revised 1994 (as Reports from the Holocaust: The Story of an AIDS Activist)

screenplay(s) Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush, 1966 Women in Love, 1969 (adaptation of D. H. Lawrence’s novel) Lost Horizon, 1973 (adaptation of James Hilton’s novel)

Author Profile

After his 1957 graduation from Yale, Larry Kramer moved quickly into the world of filmmaking. For more than a decade, he wrote and produced films, winning an Academy Award nomination for his screenplay for the film version of the D. H. Lawrence novel Women in Love (1920).

Supported by money from his career, and lessons learned from years of psychological therapy, begun after a suicide attempt during his freshman year in college, Kramer determined to explore artistic ways to respond to being gay. After his 1972 play, Sissies’ Scrapbook, failed to please critics or attract audiences, Kramer published a controversial but wildly successful novel, Faggots, which characterizes gay men as obsessed with sex but longing for love. Friends expressed their anger at Kramer for what they felt was the novel’s negative portrayal of gay men. In the early 1980’s, an alarming number of gay men were becoming ill with a strange new disease. Kramer gathered eighty men together in August, 1981, to talk about what was happening. From that meeting was born Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC), one of the first AIDS advocacy and service organizations.

Kramer quickly found his niche as a spokesman for gay men with AIDS. His anger was fueled by meager research funds, by what he saw as the Reagan Administration’s failure to act, and by what seemed like blindness to the seriousness of the crisis on the part of New York officials. Many gay men directed their anger at Kramer, who urged them to rein in their sexual activity until the cause of the disease was found.

In Kramer’s incendiary — and highly influential — 1983 essay for the New York Native, “1,112 and Counting,” he affirmed anger as the appropriate emotion for contemporary gay men, claiming that “continued existence depends on how angry you can get.” Soon GMHC removed Kramer from its board of directors.

Kramer dramatized the early years of the AIDS crisis, including his role in the formation of GMHC, in his play The Normal Heart. In the late 1980’s, Kramer discovered that he, too, was infected with the AIDS virus. That knowledge spurred him to publish a collection of essays, Reports from the Holocaust: The Making of an AIDS Activist, and to form a new, radical organization: AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, or ACT-UP.

In The Destiny of Me, his 1993 sequel to The Normal Heart, Kramer’s alter ego, Ned Weeks, reappears, still venting his rage at institutions that he thinks are ignoring or making worse the AIDS epidemic. At the same time, Ned confronts his family demons and his tortured childhood.

Essay by: James B. Graves

Bibliography

Baker, Rob. The Art of AIDS. New York: Continuum, 1994. The themes and impact of Kramer’s plays are examined.

Clum, John M. Acting Gay: Male Homosexuality in Modern Drama. New York: Columbia University Press, 1992. This comprehensive study of gay drama gives considerable attention to Larry Kramer and his activism as reflected in his major plays. Strong, insightful analysis.

Clum, John M. Still Acting Gay: Male Homosexuality in Modern Drama. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000. This updated version of Acting Gay includes useful analysis of The Destiny of Me, which had not been produced when the earlier volume was published.

Harris, William. “Staying Angry.” Dance Ink 6 (Spring, 1995). Discusses Kramer’s continuing activism.

Kramer, Larry. “An Interview with Larry Kramer.” Interview by L. A. Winokur. The Progressive 58, no. 6 (June, 1994): 32. Kramer questions the value of a solitary crusade.

Kramer, Larry. “Playboy Interview.” Playboy, September, 1993. Examines the impact of Kramer’s writings.

Mass, Lawrence D., ed. We Must Love One Another or Die: The Life and Legacies of Larry Kramer. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997. This collection of twenty essays written by experts in the field treats most aspects of Kramer’s life and writing. The collection ends with a revealing interview between the editor and Kramer.

Nelson, Emmanuel S. AIDS: The Literary Response, edited by New York: Twayne, 1992. The themes and impact of Kramer’s plays are examined. See the essays Kevin J. Harty’s “AIDS Enters the American Theater” and James Morrison’s “Larry Kramer and the Rhetoric of AIDS.”

Shnayerson, Michael. “Kramer vs. Kramer.” Vanity Fair, October, 1992, 228-297.