In his first book The Viral Underclass: The Human Toll When Inequality and Disease Collide, preeminent LGBTQIA+ scholar, social critic, and journalist Steven W. Thrasher, Ph.D. offers a powerful and crucial exploration of one of the most pressing issues of our times: how viruses expose the fault lines of society.

Having spent a ground-breaking career studying the racialization, policing, and criminalization of HIV, Dr. Thrasher has come to understand a deeper truth at the heart of our society: that there are vast inequalities in who is able to survive viruses and that the ways in which viruses spread, kill, and take their toll are much more dependent on social structures than they are on biology alone. Told through the heart-rending stories of friends, activists, and teachers navigating the novel coronavirus, HIV, and other viruses, Dr. Thrasher brings the reader with him as he delves into the viral underclass and lays bare its inner workings.

Dr. Thrasher holds the inaugural Daniel H. Renberg chair at Northwestern University’s Medill School, the first journalism professorship in the world created to focus on LGBTQIA+ research. He is also a faculty member of Northwestern’s Institute for Sexual and Gender Minority Health and Wellbeing. His writing has been widely published by Scientific American, The New York Times, Nation, The Atlantic, The Journal of American History, BuzzFeed News, Esquire, and New York magazine. In 2019, . magazine named him one of the 100 most influential and impactful people of the year and in 2020, the Ford Foundation awarded him a grant for Creativity and Free Expression.

Dr. Thrasher will be in conversation with Alida Bouris, associate professor in the University of Chicago Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice. Dr. Bouris’ research focuses on the relationship between social context and adolescent health, with a particular emphasis on understanding how parents and families can help prevent HIV/AIDS, sexually transmitted infections, and unplanned pregnancies among marginalized youth aged 10-24 years old.

This event suitable for youth 12+. It will be recorded and available on our website and YouTube channel.

This event is presented by Family Action Network (FAN). Gorton Center is proud to partner with FAN as a sponsor of this event to bring this programming to our patrons.