Spring '24 - Introduction to Fat Studies
This course critically examines “fat” as a locus of discrimination, subjectivity, embodiment, and a means of facilitating social change. Together, students will explore constructions of “fatness” as it intersects with class, race, gender, sexuality, ability, nationality and study fat activists’ efforts to alter the social, cultural, and political landscape. Using a multidisciplinary approach, the course examines a wide array of topics such as: “obesity” and the medicalization of fat; BMI; fat acceptance; health at every size (HAEs); fat embodiment; fat representation in the media; the diet and weight-loss industry and other relevant issues of interest to students. Goals for the course include: broadening students’ understanding of social justice using fat activism and fat scholarship; strengthening students’ ability to analyze contemporary social problems using historical, cultural, and socio-economic lenses; and facilitating student-centered learning through self-directed projects and/or campus engagement.
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Reading List:
1) Farrell, Amy Erdman. The Contemporary Reader of Gender and Fat Studies. Routledge: 2023. Print. [ISBN: 9780367691684] 2) May Friedman, Carla Rice, and Jen Rinaldi. Thickening Fat: Fat Bodies, Intersectionality, and Social Justice. Taylor and Francis: 2020. Print. [ISBN: 9781138580039] 3) Strings, Sabrina. Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fatphobia. New York University Press: 2019. Print. [ISBN: 9781479886753] 4) Whitesel, Jason. Fat Gay Men: Girth, Mirth, and the Politics of Stigma. New York University Press: 2014. Print. [ISBN: 978-0814724125] |