May Friedman – författare

Fat bodies of today are commonly assumed to have no future at all. In this line of thinking, a fat life is framed as failure, and a fast track towards death itself. Meanwhile, the histories of modern fat existence, communities, activists, and artists have been essentially unknown, written out of origins and existence. Most medical and cultural evaluations of fat have rendered the fat body more and more visible, and yet the lived experiences of fat people are continually erased. At a moment when scholars from various disciplines are contending with the question of who has a future, this book explores the relationship between fat experience and the social construction of time. The works in this volume draw from fields as diverse as social geography, women and gender studies, critical race theory, disability studies, cultural studies, visual art and craft, social work, communication studies, and queer theory, generating renewed understandings of the relationship between fatness and temporality. The Future Is Fat reimagines understandings of time to allow for new expressions of fat experience. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Fat Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Body Weight and Society.

Fat bodies of today are commonly assumed to have no future at all. In this line of thinking, a fat life is framed as failure, and a fast track towards death itself. Meanwhile, the histories of modern fat existence, communities, activists, and artists have been essentially unknown, written out of origins and existence. Most medical and cultural evaluations of fat have rendered the fat body more and more visible, and yet the lived experiences of fat people are continually erased. At a moment when scholars from various disciplines are contending with the question of who has a future, this book explores the relationship between fat experience and the social construction of time. The works in this volume draw from fields as diverse as social geography, women and gender studies, critical race theory, disability studies, cultural studies, visual art and craft, social work, communication studies, and queer theory, generating renewed understandings of the relationship between fatness and temporality. The Future Is Fat reimagines understandings of time to allow for new expressions of fat experience. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Fat Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Body Weight and Society.

Fat Studies: The Basics introduces the reading of fat bodies and the ways that Fat Studies, as a field, has responded to waves of ideas about fat people, their lives, and choices.Part civil rights discourse and part academic discipline, Fat Studies is a dynamic project that involves contradiction and discussion. In order to understand this field, the book also explores its intersections with race, class, gender, sexuality, age, disability, ethnicity, migration and beyond. In addition to thinking through terminology and history, this book will aim to unpack three key myths which often guide Fat Studies, showing that:fat is a meaningful site of oppression intersected with other forms of discrimination and hatredto be fat is not a choice (but also that a discussion of choice is itself problematic); andfat cannot be unambiguously correlated with a lack of healthFat Studies: The Basics is a lively and accessible foundation for students of Gender Studies, Sociology, Psychology, and Media Studies, as well as anyone interested in learning more about this emergent field.

Fat Studies: The Basics introduces the reading of fat bodies and the ways that Fat Studies, as a field, has responded to waves of ideas about fat people, their lives, and choices.Part civil rights discourse and part academic discipline, Fat Studies is a dynamic project that involves contradiction and discussion. In order to understand this field, the book also explores its intersections with race, class, gender, sexuality, age, disability, ethnicity, migration and beyond. In addition to thinking through terminology and history, this book will aim to unpack three key myths which often guide Fat Studies, showing that:fat is a meaningful site of oppression intersected with other forms of discrimination and hatredto be fat is not a choice (but also that a discussion of choice is itself problematic); andfat cannot be unambiguously correlated with a lack of healthFat Studies: The Basics is a lively and accessible foundation for students of Gender Studies, Sociology, Psychology, and Media Studies, as well as anyone interested in learning more about this emergent field.

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.

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.

Stereotypes and cultural imperialism often provide a framework of fixed characteristics for postmodern life, yet fail to address the implications of questions such as, "Where are you from?" Growing Up Transnational challenges the assumptions behind this fixed framework to look at the interconnectivity, conflict, and contradictions within current discussions of identity and kinship.This collection offers a fresh, feminist perspective on family relations, identity politics, and cultural locations in a global era. Using an interdisciplinary approach from fields including gender studies, postcolonial theory, and literary theory, this volume questions the concept of hybridity and the tangible implications of assumed identities. The rich personal narratives of the authors explore hyphenated identities, hybridized families, and the challenges and rewards of lives on and beyond borders. The result is a new transnational sensibility that explores the redefinition of the self, the family, and the nation.

Mothers have consistently relied upon one another for guidance and support as they navigate the difficult world of parenting. For many women, the increasingly established online community of “mommyblogs” now provides a source of camaraderie and support that acknowledges both the work of mothering and the implications of its undertaking. Beyond their capacity to entertain, how have mommyblogs shifted our understanding of twenty-first-century motherhood?In examining the content of hundreds of mommyblogs, May Friedman considers the ways that online maternal life writing provides a front row seat to some of the most raw, offbeat, and engaging portraits of motherhood imaginable. Focusing on the composition of the “mamasphere” and on mommyblogs’ emphasis on connection, Friedman reveals the changing face of contemporary motherhood – one less concerned with the proscriptions of what good mothers should do, and more invested in what diverse mothers have to say.

Click and Kin is an interdisciplinary examination of how our increasingly mobile and networked age is changing the experience of kinship and connection. Focusing on how identity formation is affected by quick media such as instant messaging, video chat, and social networks, the contributors to this collection use ethnographic and textual analyses, as well as autobiographical approaches, to demonstrate the ways in which the ability to communicate across national boundaries is transforming how we grow together and apart as families, communities, and nations.The essays in Click and Kin span the globe, examining transnational connections that touch in the United States, Canada, Mexico, India, Pakistan, and elsewhere. Together, they offer a unique reflection on the intersection of new media, identity politics, and kinship in the twenty-first century.

This book is a deep dive into the largely unexplored space of BBW “bashes”—multi-day gatherings of fat women and their admirers. Using a range of feminist theories of embodiment and affect, the project is guided by autoethnography and in-depth interviews with twelve participants. Participant experiences are first analyzed with a key focus on experiences that cause grief and disenfranchisement; subsequently, the book looks at experiences that may be radical or revelatory. The book does not seek to either villainize or valorize BBW spaces but instead sheds a bright light on the experience of this cultural subspace and all it may offer to analyses of fat life.

This book is a deep dive into the largely unexplored space of BBW “bashes”—multi-day gatherings of fat women and their admirers. Participant experiences are first analyzed with a key focus on experiences that cause grief and disenfranchisement;

Plenty has been published on body image but image suggests a static fixed body unmitigated through our social interactions and varying times and spaces. This book is not a’how-to' guide for fat confidence. It's not a compendium of fat suffering. It's simply a collection of narratives about what it's like to survive in a weight-hating world.