[csaa-forum] CFP: Special Journal Issue on Fat Embodiment/Fat Studies

[Samantha Murray]

** PLEASE DISTRIBUTE WIDELY. APOLOGIES FOR CROSS POSTING **

Call For Papers
³Fat Studies: A Critical Dialogue²

Special Journal Issue of Feminism & Psychology
Guest Editor: Dr Samantha Murray

While cultural anxieties about fatness and stigmatisation of fat bodies in
Western cultures have been central to dominant discourses about bodily
Œpropriety¹ since the early twentieth century, the rise of the Œdisease¹
category of obesity and the moral panic over an alleged global Œobesity
epidemic¹ has lent a medical authority and legitimacy to what can be
described as Œfat-phobia¹. Against the backdrop of the ever-growing
medicalisation and pathologisation of fatness, the field of Fat Studies has
emerged in recent years to offer an interdisciplinary critical interrogation
of the dominant medical models of health, to give voice to the lived
experience of fat bodies, and to offer critical insights into, and
investigations of, the ethico-political implications of the cultural
meanings that have come to be attached to fat bodies.

This Special Issue will examine a range of questions concerning the
construction of fat bodies in the dominant imaginary, including the
problematic intersection of medical discourse and morality around Œobesity¹,
disciplinary technologies of Œhealth¹ to normalise fat bodies (such as diet
regimes, exercise programs and bariatric surgeries), gendered aspects of
Œfat¹, dominant discourses of Œfatness¹ in a range of cultural contexts, and
critical strategies for political resistance to pervasive Œfat-phobic¹
attitudes. 

This Special Issue of Feminism & Psychology will showcase critical fat
scholarship from around the globe by gathering together research from across
a spectrum of disciplinary backgrounds (such as Cultural Studies, Fat
Studies, Critical Psychology, Philosophy, Sociology, Human/Cultural
Geography, Public Health, etc) as well as activists and health care
professionals. The Special Issue seeks to begin a critical conversation
about the productive and enabling critical possibilities Fat Studies offers
for rethinking dominant notions about health and pathology, gender and
bodily aesthetics, political interventions, and beyond.


Papers are sought that engage with topics such as (but not limited to):

€    Interventions to normalise fat bodies (such as diet regimes, exercise
programs, weight loss pharmaceuticals and bariatric surgeries);

€    The ethico-political implications of the medicalisation of Œobesity¹;

€    Constructions of the Œfat child¹ in childhood obesity media reportage;

€    Representations of fat bodies in film, television, literature or art;

€    Intersections of medical discourse and morality around Œobesity¹;

€    The somatechnics of fatness;

€    Critical psychological responses to eating practices and body politics;

€    Histories of fat activism and/or strategies for political intervention;

€    Fat and queer histories/identities;

€    Fat embodiment online, the Fat-O-Sphere;

€    Feminist responses to fatness;

€    Constructions of fatness in a range of cultural contexts;

€    Systems of body quantification, measurement, and conceptualizations of
(in)appropriate Œsize¹;

€    Fat as it intersects with race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, gender,
disability and/or ageing.

Contributions will be expected to orient themselves to the core aims and
mission of Feminism & Psychology, which is concerned with publishing work
that fosters the development of feminist theory and practice in ­ and beyond
­ psychology, and that provides insights into the gendered reality of
everyday lives.

The Special Issue will consist of papers in of the following formats:
€    Papers between 5 ­ 6000 words in length;
€    Observation/Commentary-style papers ­ up  to 2500 words in length

Please note that all word counts include reference lists.
Contributions will be selected following an anonymous peer review process.
For further information regarding referencing styles and formatting
guidelines, please go to
http://www.uk.sagepub.com/journalsProdManSub.nav?prodId=Journal200868


Please send full-length papers, as Word doc attachments, to Dr Samantha
Murray via email at Samantha.murray at mq.edu.au by Friday, 26 November 2010.




Dr Samantha Murray

Lecturer in Cultural Studies
Department of Media, Music, Communication & Cultural Studies
Faculty of Arts
Macquarie University
Email:  smurray78 at gmail.com
        samantha.murray at mq.edu.au