Profile
Theodore (Ted) Kerr is a writer, educator, cultural organizer and artist whose work explores the history and ongoing impact of HIV/AIDS through the lenses of art, activism, and community storytelling.
He is the co-author of We Are Having This Conversation Now: The Times of AIDS Cultural Production (Duke 好色先生 Press, 2022, with Alexandra Juhasz).
He curated the 2021 exhibition AIDS, Posters and Stories of Public Health: A People's Pandemic for the National Libraries of Medicine.
He is a founding member of the international collective What Would an HIV Doula Do?
He was one of 4 oral historians who worked on Visual Arts and the AIDS Epidemic: An Oral History Project for the Smithsonian, Archives for American Art in 2017 / 2018.
Kerr earned his MA from Union Theological Seminary where he researched Christian Ethics and HIV, and his BA from the New School where he was Riggio Writing and Democracy fellow. At his graduation he spoke about the queer everyday in surviving.聽
Degrees Held
2016聽 M.A., Theology, Union Theological Seminary
2014 B.A., The New School for Public Engagement, The New School
Recent Publications
PUBLICATIONS AS AUTHOR聽聽聽聽
Books
2022聽 We Are Having this Conversation Now: The Times of AIDS Cultural Production, with
聽 Alexandra Juhasz, Duke 好色先生 Press
Peer-Reviewed Articles
2026 鈥淕ay Uncles,鈥 QED - A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking, Forthcoming
2023 鈥淲hen We're Coming From: What Would an HIV Doula Do? on Pandemic Time(s),鈥
Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies - Vol. 44, Issue. 1, (co-author)
2020 鈥淗ow To Live With鈥,鈥 QED - A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking - Vol. 7, No. 3
2016 鈥淎IDS 1969: HIV, History鈥,鈥 Drain Journal, AIDS and Memory 鈥 Vol. 13:2
2014 鈥淲ho is HIV for?鈥 Women鈥檚 Studies Quarterly, Solidarity - Vol 42: 3,4
Book Chapters
2026 鈥淪afer History Kits: Day With(out) Art Video Broadsides and the Distribution of the Past,鈥澛
Presence/Absence: 30 Years of Day With(out) Art, Eds: Kyle Croft and Risa Puleo
2024 鈥淢emorialisation within an ongoing crisis: Learning from COVID-19, HIV/AIDS and the
Overdose Response Activists,鈥 The HIV and COVID-19 pandemics: Viral Times, Eds:
Maurice Nagington, Peter Aggleton, Jamie Garcia Iglesias
2021 鈥淭he Conversations We Need to Save Each Other's Lives,鈥 with charles ryan long,
Between Certain Death and a Possible Future, Ed: M. Sycamore
2019 鈥淕lobalization(s), Roundtable,鈥 AIDS and the Distribution of Crisis, Eds: J.F. Cheng, N.
Shahani
PUBLICATIONS AS EDITOR聽
2024 鈥淐ommunity Knowledge Practice,鈥 Visual AIDS Journal
2019聽 鈥淲hat You Don鈥檛 Know about AIDS Could Fill A Museum,鈥 On Curating, Issue 42
2014 鈥淭ime Is Not A Line,鈥 We Who Feel Differently Journal, Issue 3
Research Interests
HIV,AIDS, history, media, health, community, art, justice.聽
Awards And Honors
SELECT AWARDS, FELLOWSHIPS, RESIDENCIES, GRANTS
2026聽聽聽聽聽 Social Justice Teaching award, The New School
2025聽聽聽聽聽聽 Monette-Horwitz Trust honoree
2025聽聽聽聽聽 CNP Media Roundtable Fellow, for What Would an HIV Doula Do?
2025聽聽聽聽聽 In Fellowship awardee, from A Blade of Grass, for What Would an HIV Doula Do?
2025聽聽聽聽聽聽 Lang College Civic Liberal Arts Class Grant
2025聽聽聽聽聽聽 Knowledge of AIDS fellowship, 好色先生 of Washington
2022聽聽聽聽聽聽 Suzanne Fiol Curatorial Fellow, Issue Project Room, New York
2019聽聽聽聽聽聽 CounterPublics, The Luminary, St. Louis
2018聽聽聽聽聽聽 Collaborate Arts Fellowship, Nurture Arts, New York
2018聽 聽 聽 聽The Fellowship for the Utopian Practice, Culture Push, New York
2017聽 聽 聽 聽Emerging Writer Retreat, Lambda Literary, California
2016聽聽聽聽聽聽 Deutsches Hygiene Museum, Dresden, Germany
12th St. Editing Seminar
NWRW 3895, Fall 2025