(The Center Square) – The University of Maryland is offering a course called “Intro to Fat Studies: Fatness, Blackness and Their Intersections” this spring.
The three-credit course will be taught by Professor Sydney Lewis on Tuesdays and Thursdays and looks at “fatness as intersectional,” particularly highlighting “the relationship between fatness and blackness,” according to the course description.
When contacted twice by The Center Square, Lewis did not respond.
“Intro to Fat Studies” will examine “fatness as an area of human difference subject to privilege and discrimination that intersects with other systems of oppression based on gender, race, class, sexual orientation, and ability.”
“We approach this area of study through an interdisciplinary humanities and social-science lens which emphasizes fatness as a social justice issue,” the description said.
“The course closes with an examination of fat liberation as liberation for all bodies with a particular emphasis on performing arts and activism as a vehicle for liberation and challenging fatmisia,” according to the description.
Fatmisia is the hatred of fatness, versus fatphobic which means fear of fatness, according to the Simmons University Library.
“Intro to Fat Studies” is offered through the University of Maryland’s Harriet Tubman Department of Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies.
Other courses available through the Department of Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies (WGSS) include Gender, Race and Computing; Quare/Queer Contentions: Exploration of Sexualities in the Black Community; and Feminist, Critical Race, and Queer Theories.
Lewis strives to “blur the boundaries between the academy, art, and activism” in her teaching, according to a school bio. Her subject interests are black feminist theory and culture, black queer theory, mad studies, and disability justice to name a few.
In the winter of 2022, Lewis taught a course called “Bodies in Contention.”
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The class looked at bodies that, according to the course description, cause “societal discomfort,” and how observing these “marginalized” groups encourage people to consider all body types “as socially constructed.” Such bodies were stated as “non-white bodies, fat bodies, disabled bodies, queer, intersex, and trans gender bodies.”
The Center Square reached out to WGSS academic program manager Gwen Warman and University of Maryland media relations. Warman did not respond, while the university’s media relations did not provide comment in time for publishing.
