Harvard University summer course to examine ‘disability and fat studies’

Harvard University in Massachusetts will offer an online summer course about “fat studies and disability studies.” 

The course, “Sick, Fat, Ugly, Useless: Disability and Fat Studies,” will have students examine questions such as “why do we still have so much prejudice about bodies that differ from the so-called norm.”

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Participants will “explore the politics of the body,” and “examine questions drawn from fat liberation about the construction of aesthetics, the history of fatphobia and racism, and the way we layer symbolic meaning on the body.”

The course will also consider “stereotypes of disabled and fat people in media studies” and “ask some hard questions about the persistence of eugenics through the lens of bio-power and necropolitics.”

The professor, Keridwen N. Luis, is a Senior Lecturer in Anthropology and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Brandeis University.

She is currently working on a research project called “Fan Bodies and Fan Performance: Community, Identity, and Intersecting Selves,” which is a “fieldwork and interview project examining gender, sexuality, race, and disability in science fiction and media fandom.”

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Her research focuses include “Women’s Studies,” “Gender Studies,” and “nonheternormative sexualities.” 

Many other colleges and universities offer courses on fat studies. For example, Harvard University, Lewis & Clark Graduate School, and The New School are all offering courses on the subject this spring. 

Campus Reform has contacted Harvard University and Keridwen Luis for comment. This story will be updated accordingly.