title: Disability and the NAMES project.
abstract: This essay considers how the AIDS quilt can function within the public historical record as a disability artifact; it connects contestations over the quilt to contestations over the meaning of disability in American cultures. Although the AIDS quilt is a very different artifact from others constructed during the Disability Rights Movement, the movement that generated the AIDS quilt has likewise been propelled by a commitment to more democratic futures. This essay considers how interpretations of the past can contribute to such futures and asks what can be gained by broadening our still-fluctuating sense of what disability history might be.
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: McRuer
mesh_terms: D000163:Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome / Q000266:history*; D001154:Art / Q000266:history; D006233:Persons with Disabilities / Q000266:history*; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D009275:Names; D014481:United States