Katrina Haslip, AIDS Activist Photo Credit to Woman At The Reel
REMAKING A LIFE
In the face of life-threatening news, how do we reevaluate and transform our lives? Celeste Watkins-Hayes spent more than a decade documenting the experiences of over 100 women living with HIV/AIDS in Chicago and beyond.
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Remaking a Life uses the HIV/AIDS epidemic as a lens to understand how women achieve radical improvements in their social wellbeing in the face of social stigma and economic disadvantage.
Drawing on interviews with nationally recognized AIDS activists and policy experts as well as women living with HIV/AIDS, Watkins-Hayes takes readers on an uplifting journey chronicling women’s movements from “dying from” to “thriving despite” HIV/AIDS as they fight for their physical, emotional, economic, and political survival.
With an eye towards improving the lives of women, Remaking a Life provides strategies to encourage private, nonprofit, and government agencies to successfully collaborate, and shares policy ideas with the hope of alleviating the injuries of inequality faced by those living with HIV/AIDS every day.
Remaking a Life speaks to the profound success of the HIV/AIDS community over the past 40 years, and how it can serve as a roadmap for how we can combat today’s public health crises.
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ABOUT THE COVER
The cover image for this book is a stunning work by artist Sally Deng entitled Another Struggle.
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We see a black woman in movement—toward what/who/where, we can only speculate. She is traveling through a sea of people, mostly white men, as she swims her limbs through the masses to get to her destination. She could be an activist on her way to a demonstration, a congressional staffer shepherding an important piece of legislation through a complicated process, an advocate heading to a strategy meeting, or a woman living with HIV/AIDS traversing everyday life. The image, neither patronizing nor pitiful, symbolizes how black women are at once invisible and central in the AIDS epidemic and the global response.
ACCOLADES
WINNER
Distinguished Scholarly Book Award
American Sociological Association, 2021
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​CO-WINNER
The Mirra Komarovsky Book Award
Eastern Sociological Society, 2021
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CO-WINNER
Distinguished Book Award
Section on Sex and Gender
American Sociological Association, 2020
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WINNER
Betty and Alfred McClung Lee Book Award
Association for Humanist Sociology, 2020
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HONORABLE MENTION
Ida B. Wells Book Award
Association of Black Sociologists, 2020
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HONORABLE MENTION
Outstanding Publication Award
Section on Aging & the Life Course
American Sociological Association, 2020
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GOLD MEDAL
Women’s Issues, 2020
Independent Publisher Book Awards, 2020
WINNER
Distinguished Book Award
Section on Race, Gender, & Class
American Sociological Association, 2020
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WINNER
Alison Piepmeier Book Prize
National Women's Studies Association, 2020
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WINNER
Eliot Freidson Outstanding Publication Award
Section on Medical Sociology
American Sociological Association, 2020
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HONORABLE MENTION
Sara A. Whaley Book Prize
National Women's Studies Association
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FINALIST
PROSE Book Award
Association of American Publishers, 2020
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#1 NEW RELEASE
in the areas of AIDS, Gender Studies and
Health Care Delivery on Amazon.com, 2019
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SPECIAL SELECTION
Received a Book Salon at the American
Sociological Association Meetings, 2021
Reviewed in: Gender and Society, United States Studies Online, Choice Magazine,
Journal of the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care