Virology

Essays for the Living, the Dead, and the Small Things in Between

By: Joseph Osmundson

Narrated by: Joseph Osmundson

Length: 13 hrs and 7 mins

Publisher's summary

Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2022 by Literary Hub

A leading microbiologist tackles the scientific and sociopolitical impact of viruses in twelve striking essays.

Invisible in the food we eat, the people we kiss, and inside our own bodies, viruses flourish—with the power to shape not only our health, but our social, political, and economic systems. Drawing on his expertise in microbiology, Joseph Osmundson brings listeners under the microscope to understand the structure and mechanics of viruses and to examine how viruses like HIV and COVID-19 have redefined daily life.

Osmundson’s buoyant prose builds on the work of the activists and thinkers at the forefront of the HIV/AIDS crisis and critical scholars like José Esteban Muñoz to navigate the intricacies of risk reduction, draw parallels between queer theory and hard science, and define what it really means to “go viral.” This dazzling multidisciplinary collection offers novel insights on illness, sex, and collective responsibility. Virology is a critical warning, a necessary reflection, and a call for a better future.

Special thanks to Ngofeen Mputubwele, Steven D. Booth, and David Barr, whose voices were featured on the audiobook

©2022 Joseph Osmundson (P)2022 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

Osmundson writes with the disarming voice of that teacher who makes science cool, even radical. His thought is discursive, his questioning accretive. He contains—and covers—multitudes: How are white people to stop spreading the lethal disease of “whiteness”? How does capitalism limit the imagination? Is evolution quintessentially queer? The task of following his leaps and swerves, while occasionally challenging, is its own reward, a chance to collaborate with a mind at work.—John Okrent, New York Times Book Review

Virology is a brilliant book, both playful and serious, showing us all how viruses live with us, as we live with them. Drawing on queer theory, Osmundson offers a way of understanding care in the midst of anguish and anxiety as well as desire and hope. The viral world is the ordinary world of life and death, of caring for one another in our vulnerability and persistence. This book explains the science of virology for our times, offering a compassionate education for all of us disoriented in pandemic times. This book is queer pedagogy at its best: non-patronizing, thoroughly smart, and full of urgent and caring knowledge that beckons us to get closer again with caution and passion.—Judith Butler

Joe Osmundson’s Virology is an incisive look at our relationship to earth’s most plentiful life form—how we live with viruses and how viruses live in and through us. But more than this, it is a compelling examination of the tension between avoidance and exposure, safety and risk, preservation of the self and openness to evolution and change. This book is a potent medicine for our times.—Lacy M. Johnson, author of The Reckonings

Important

An important book for our times! I related so much to it. Highly recommend for anyone who cares about science and love and caring.

Emotive & Timely

Performance wise, I was struck by the emotive was of the author during the reading - hearing the author talk about the passing of friends is powerful stuff.

Audience confusion

It’s hard to say who Osmudson wrote this for. The sections explaining how Covid, HIV and other viruses work provide valuable explanations of the science of viruses. But interspersing science with description of what he wore to his favorite leather bar after the Covid restrictions were lifted, or a boyfriend’s taste for public sex, are bound to sour some and leave many perplexed. Science is neither gay nor straight nor bi. Where was the editor when the author was assembling this mash-up?