Thickening Fat: Fat Bodies, Intersectionality, and Social Justice - Paperback

by May Friedman (Editor), Carla Rice (Editor), Jen Rinaldi (Editor)

Thickening Fat: Fat Bodies, Intersectionality, and Social Justice seeks to explore the multiple, variable, and embodied experiences of fat oppression and fat activisms. Moving beyond an analysis of fat oppression as singular, this book will aim to unpack the volatility of fat--the mutability of fat embodiments as they correlate with other embodied subjectivities, and the threshold where fat begins to be reviled, celebrated, or amended. In addition, Thickening Fat explores the full range of intersectional and liminal analyses that push beyond the simple addition of two or more subjectivities, looking instead at the complex alchemy of layered and unstable markers of difference and privilege.

Cognizant that the concept of intersectionality has been filled out in a plurality of ways, Thickening Fat poses critical questions around how to render analysis of fatness intersectional and to thicken up intersectionality, where intersectionality is attenuated to the shifting and composite and material dimensions to identity, rather than reduced to an "add difference and stir" approach. The chapters in this collection ask what happens when we operationalize intersectionality in fat scholarship and politics, and we position difference at the centre and start of inquiry.

Author Biography

May Friedman is an associate professor in the Ryerson University School of Social Work and Ryerson/York graduate program in Communication and Culture, and she holds a PhD in Women's Studies from York University. Dr. Friedman has a long publication history including the award-winning monograph Mommyblogs and the Changing Face of Motherhood (2013), as well as several edited collections.

Carla Rice is Professor and Canada Research Chair specializing in Embodiment/Subjectivity studies and in Arts-based/Research Creation Methodologies at the University of Guelph, and she holds a PhD from York University in Gender and Women's Studies. She founded Re-Vision: The Centre for Art and Social Justice as a leading-edge creative research center with a mandate to foster inclusive communities, well-being, equity, and justice. She has received numerous awards for advocacy, research, and mentorship including the Feminist Mentorship Award and the Mary McEwen Award for Outstanding Gender Studies Scholarship, and she was recently inducted into the Royal Society of Canada, College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists. She has published numerous books and articles, and directs multiple research grants.

Jen Rinaldi is an Assistant Professor in the Legal Studies program at Ontario Tech University. She earned a doctoral degree in Critical Disability Studies at York University, and a master's degree in Philosophy at the University of Guelph. She and Kate Rossiter authored Institutional Violence & Disability: Punishing Conditions (2018).