Obesity Timebomb: Call for Papers: Special Issue of Fat Studies on Visual Representation
Visual representations should be taken to include any and all forms of visual media, including, but not limited to: photography, the ‘fine’ arts, mass media imagery, film, live performance, museum installations, posters, and ephemera. Submissions do not need to be bound by historical timeline or cultural boundaries, but please be culturally- and historically-specific in your analyses. Fat Studies analyses do not need to be restricted to particular body sizes or shapes; Fat Studies approaches can examine numerous ways in which body weight, size, and shape might have particular social meaning – and in the case of this special issue of the journal, particular visual significance.
Potential topics might include, but are not limited to:
- The use of visual representations in teaching Fat Studies
- Intersections of body size, race, class, sexuality, gender, and other forms of cultural identification in television shows such as: Roseanne, The Gilmore Girls, Huge, Drop Dead Diva, Dollhouse, The Biggest Loser, Glee, Mike and Molly, etc.
- Nineteenth and twentieth century advertisements for fattening and/or dieting products
- The use of visual media to represent ‘the obesity epidemic’
- Moving beyond the “rubenesque” in paintings of fat subjects
To submit a proposal for inclusion in this special issue of the journal, please send a 250-500 word summary of your article as well as a current CV to Stefanie Snider, at Snider.Stefanie@gmail.com by July 1, 2012. Any questions about the special issue can be directed to this email address as well.