From Vice to Nice: Race, AIDS, and Midwestern Politics
84 Church St. SE
Minneapolis,
MN
55455
Join author Dr. René Esparza ('17 PhD, American Studies) for a presentation from his book, From Vice to Nice: Midwestern Politics and the Gentrification of AIDS, followed by a conversation moderated by Dr. Elliott Powell (Dept of American Studies). This program marks the first event in the new Making Minnesota series hosted by the College of Liberal Arts.
This evening of critical dialogue explores the intersection of race, sexuality, public health, and urban politics in the Twin Cities. Dr. Esparza will share excerpts detailing how Midwestern political strategies and homonormative activism weaponized the AIDS epidemic to reshape local urban landscapes. Following the presentation, Dr. Powell will join Dr. Esparza to examine how these historical intersections of race and sexuality inform contemporary struggles for spatial and health justice, concluding with an audience Q&A.
About the event
Thursday, October 8, 2026
5:00 PM Reception | Northrop Gallery
6:00 PM Program | Best Buy Theater
This event is free and open to the public. Registration is required.
About the Speakers
Dr. René Esparza is Assistant Professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Washington University in St. Louis. An interdisciplinary historian, his research examines how space, migration, and public health shape the racial and sexual politics of the modern United States. Across his scholarship, he explores how states and local communities define who belongs, who is excluded, and how those boundaries are contested by queer and trans communities of color.
He is the author of From Vice to Nice: Midwestern Politics and the Gentrification of AIDS (University of North Carolina Press), which argues that privacy-centered approaches to HIV prevention in the 1980s aligned with urban “cleanup” campaigns that targeted low-income neighborhoods and intensified the policing of communities of color in the upper Midwest.
His current book project, Exiled and Excludable: Queer and Trans Cuban Refugees and the Making of U.S. Sexual Citizenship, reinterprets the 1980 Mariel Boatlift as the largest queer and trans migration in modern U.S. history. Tracing queer and trans Cuban refugees’ experiences from Miami to Minneapolis, Boston, and Philadelphia, the project examines how they unsettled U.S. myths of benevolence, reshaped sexual citizenship, and reconfigured refugee policy in ways that continue to shape debates over asylum, detention, and sponsorship today. Esparza’s work appears in American Quarterly, GLQ, Radical History Review, and the Journal of the History of Sexuality, among others. His research has been funded by the Ford Foundation and the National Science Foundation. Dr. Esparza holds a PhD and MA in American Studies from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.
Dr. Elliott Powell is an Associate Professor of American Studies and Asian American Studies at the University of Minnesota. His interdisciplinary research merges critical race, feminist, and queer theories to examine the political and social dimensions of U.S. popular music. He is the author of Sounds from the Other Side: Afro-South Asian Collaborations in Black Popular Music, which won both the Woody Guthrie Best Book Award and the Phillip Brett Book Award. In addition, he serves as the Associate Director of the Center for the Study of Race, Indigeneity, Disability, Gender, and Sexuality at the University of Minnesota.
Event Sponsors
Extending our deepest gratitude to all who are supporting this event:
- Department of American Studies
- Department of Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies
- Department of History
- Minnesota Leather Pride
- Pride Alumni Network
- Sex Workers Outreach Project
- UMN Pride @ Work
Making Minnesota is a periodic event series focused on the Twin Cities region where the College of Liberal Arts is situated, and the state of Minnesota as a whole. The series will feature new books by CLA alumni or faculty highlighting issues and communities locally and across the state that influence and anchor the University of Minnesota. Making Minnesota will draw scholars into conversation with our neighbors about the past, present, and future of the Twin Cities and our state.