Join us in person or online for a seminar with Dr Geraldine Fela.
Blood Politics: Nurses and Australia’s AIDS Crisis
HIV and AIDS devastated communities across Australia in the 1980s and 1990s. In the midst of this profound health crisis, nurses provided crucial care to those living with and dying from the virus. They negotiated homophobia and complex family dynamics as well as defending the rights of their patients. Drawing on oral history testimony and archival evidence, this paper discusses the important and unexamined history of nurses and nursing unions as caregivers and political agents. Nurses and their unions worked alongside communities affected by HIV to shape Australia’s response to the virus, and remake the medical system.
5 August 2026, 11am AEST
Burwood: C2.05.01
Waurn Ponds: IC1.108
Zoom: Click here.
Geraldine Fela is a postdoctoral research fellow in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Deakin University. Her research traverses histories of gender and sexuality, labour, social movements and medicine. Her first book, Critical Care: Nurses on the Frontline of Australia’s AIDS Crisis, was published by UNSW Press in July 2024. In 2025, Critical Care was awarded the Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Australian History, and was shortlisted in the NSW History Awards.
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