Theodore Kerr

Shout out to the situationship anthems archived on this perfect running accessory. 2016-2021 I broke it out again and wow. Wild how some songs get my heart racing still and others that I care barely remember. #slideaway #findyourwayback #stud #tisthedamnseason #slide

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Congrats to David and @gabrielduckels on their book, THE FIGHT OF OUR LIVES. It’s a nonfiction YA book that tells the ongoing story of HIV through the lives of young people. The book is an assemblage of first-person stories, timelines, and images that, when collected and shared in chronological order, provide an engaging, nuanced, readable — and teachable — book. And while it might be YA, for people long in the HIV response there are things you can and will learn by reading this book. One of the major reasons I like the book is that I think that David and Gabriel, motivated by the curiosity of a YA reader, have crafted a book that provides memory and history without feeling burdened by calcified AIDS stories. They make good use of recent research developments and updated conventions around how we discuss HIV/AIDS now. Most meaningful for me is how early in the book we meet Robert Rayford, a young person who lived with HIV, dying of a then-unknown illness in 1969 in St. Louis. For over 10 years I have been sharing his story in St. Louis, in academic texts, artworks, and HIV-related publications. This is the first mass market book that centers Rayford’s story, and does so in the context of young people living with HIV. I see what Gabriel and David did with Rayford’s story as a beautiful act of care, sharing his story in the context of other young people. In THE FIGHT OF OUR LIVES, Rayford is not treated as an anomaly, he is not out there in the story of AIDS all alone. He, and other young people, are collected in a book about their lives, together.

I have a complicated relationship with awards. But not this one. I am simply proud. The Award for Outstanding Achievements in Social Justice Teaching is, I think, an endorsement of the collective work the students and I have done over the years with @newschoolhealth , guided by Tamara; with everyone over the years at @langcesj including Anthony and Kelcia; and of course, everyone in the Writing and Democracy project within @newschoolwriting , including @jmaebarizo , @laurarcronk , @lorilynnserena , @easyreeder and the @12thstreetonline editors! I started teaching at The New School 10 years ago, a mid semester replacement. It was a few weeks before the 2016 election and I remember the morning after the results, sitting in a large circle in the activist hub at the UC as we started to figure out what was next. Fast forward a decade and everything the students feared would happen has largely come to fruition. And, vibrant networks of support, mutual care, and praxis have also bloomed. Over the last decade I have seen how the TNS communities I am a part of have learned and taught together, stood up for each other, celebrated each other, and helped each other weather many literal and structural storms. Special shout out to the Freedom Scholars, and everyone who has ever taken my AIDS class at TNS. #grateful I am proud of the work I have done, I am honored to be in the communities I get to be in, and I am OVER THE MOON to be sharing this award with Ale! Pic: @apollaechino

AIDS posters are strongest when they communicate hope and possibility. Otherwise, as I argue in a recent post for @posterhousenyc , why would someone feel compelled to learn about the virus, get tested, or start and stay on medication? Viewers—whether living with HIV or fearing they may be—need to know about the existence of resources and community. This may sound obvious, but history shows otherwise. Many of the first posters I remember—whether produced by government agencies or pharmaceutical companies—were impersonal at best. Before it became standard for them to feature “real people,” , two modes dominated the field: sex-positive posters for gay men built on narrow Eurocentric beauty ideals, and vague, sanitized posters for the general public aimed at avoiding conservative backlash. These were considered improvements only because they followed an earlier era when fear of death was the primary motivator used in AIDS posters and PSAs. It took activist and media pushback to move beyond that approach. Fortunately, amid many ineffective campaigns, remarkable AIDS posters have emerged—often created by independent or community-informed artists—using lived experience to convey the possibility of a full life with HIV. —— This is an excerpt from a piece I wrote for Poster House. I go on to offer a short critical history (slides 2,3) followed by words on Bobbi Campbell’s poster that started it all (slide 4), and examples from DiAna’s hair salon (slide 5), @gmhc (slides 1,6), postervirus + Christopher Jones (slide 7) , and a project I did with @wwhivdd and a class I taught at The New School featuring @m_e_g_g_i_e_b and @storiesandnoise (slides 8,9) Read full post on the Poster House blog ( link in bio) , written in celebration of @ianbradleyperrin ‘s AIDS poster exhibition, LOVE + FURY Go see the show!

Put this on your syllabus! If you are teaching at a school, in your community, for yourself.

On Tuesday, May 26th at 12pm, ISSUE Online brings together anna RG (2025 AIR) and Theodore (ted) Kerr (2022 SFCF). Drawing on RG’s speculative fiction project, Sick Music Center, the pair establish a shared set of rules, organizing their dialogue around three key prompts they call “Strategy,” “Focus,” and “Loose Ends.” Kerr sets an 8-minute timer for each section, and with that, they play, discover, and ultimately, (¯´•._.• disobey •._.•´¯) @arg___art @tedkerr #issueair20

I’m excited to be a part of @oralhistory_summerschool this year! I’ll be leading a workshop and part of an event! Visit OHSS ig page for more info.

Whitey on the Moon is a 1970 poem by Gil Scott - Heron, written after the 1969 moon landing. In the poem he uses humor, reality and repetition to put the space trip in context to the struggles of people on earth, including him and his sister. I use the poem to think about the recent trip NASA folks took around the moon in my newsletter that I shared today. I conclude the moon section by sharing 1969 and 2026 photos of earth and writing, “To put it into some perspective: below is the 1969 photo of earth, alongside the 2026 version. In both we see a stunning blue dot amid the enormity of the universe. Some days things feel as bad as they’ve ever been. Some days are miracles. Both things can be true.” What I realize I don’t fully convey in the newsletter is that time gives me hope. Human ingenuity gives me hope. And collective projects done over time give me up. We are fighting to make things better now, AND into the future. The rest of the newsletter contains links and project news, along with a draft of a longer piece I’m working on about AIDS memorials, specially the latest one in West Hollywood, STORIES: The AIDS Monument. I spend time thinking about Traces, the long bronze details that make up the bulk of the monument. I write: “As someone who has been part of the HIV response for over 20 years, the Traces conjure for me what remains after a fire — scorched trunks still standing, or the skeletal framework of where a home once stood. Standing among them, I felt the association settle: a sense of loss, paired with the possibility of rebuilding.” Feedback, questions, thoughts are welcome. Message me if you need the link! SLIDE 1 - Gil Scott-Heron SLIDE 2 - Earth, 1969 SLIDE 3 - Earth , 2026 SLIDE 4 - Earth, 1959 SLIDE 5 - STORIES: The AIDS Monument @theaidsmonument A monument is not a moon landing, but it is about having faith in the future.

Who is a criminal? Today in Sociology we talked crime, deviance and social control.

hello current + future students of The New School: do you care about art, social change, and looking at examples from the past to understand the present? take my Fall 2026 class, UPHEAVALS & AFTERMATHS: THE ART OF SOCIAL CHANGE IN ACTION We will use 1776, 1969, and 2020 as our guide. Here are images from around those years including Breonna Taylor portrait by Amy Sherald; the anti-war Bed-in protest created by Yoko Ono and John Lennon; a statue of King George being taken down depicted almost 100 years later. See course description and more artists and thinkers we will discuss below. Reach out if you have questions! This class is rooted in an in-depth and intimate investigation of what artists can teach us about the power, possibility and limits of using art in efforts to document, make sense of and communicate in times of great change. The class will focus on pivotal years in history such as 1776, 1969, and 2020, with an eye towards the role art and artists played in making sense of what was happening. At the end of the semester, students will work together to create a resource that shares key insights from over the course of class. Course material examples include: looking at the painting and crafts that epitomize the founding of the US through Pam Holland’s “1776: Heartache, Heritage, and Happiness”, consider the impact of 1970s US independent cinema through the lens of Pauline Kael’s article “Trash, art, and the movies,” and the work of artist Kerry James Marshall, and his exploration of public health issues through paint.

We talked about war today in class. I offered the social determinants of health as a frame to discuss what is happening. It’s all so overwhelming and shitty, offering language, scope, etc, can help process feelings, questions, options, knowledge.