THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELLED.

In this panel, several historians consider Rebecca Makkai’s The Great Believers (2018), the critically acclaimed and multiple-award-winning novel about the AIDS epidemic in Chicago in the 1980s. This is a panel not only about the history of HIV/AIDS but also about the space between fiction and history, and the challenges of writing a fictional account of the AIDS crisis. Rebecca Makkai will conclude the session with her own reflections on writing the novel.

Chair: Kevin Mumford, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Panelists:
• Rebecca Makkai, Author (fiction)
• John D’Emilio, University of Illinois at Chicago
• Jennifer Brier, University of Illinois at Chicago