Infected body/infected corpus: AIDS, narrative and opportunistic metaphors

Abstract

Is the constant presence of the body in the AIDS's narratives (and the consequent problematization of its ontological status) just a recurrent theme or it would be connected to metaphorical and allegorical processes that aim to discuss what goes beyond the human body? Simultaneously, such plot we can find in AIDS narratives confronts a micropolitics of the desire, related to the ascetic exercise with the construction of the self through literary diction (it is not rare to notice such diction going beyond the limits between fiction and biography) and the preoccupation with the literary discourse commitments in reference to the social and political life of their respective countries.