University to offer intro to fat studies – and yes, of course, there is a race factor

Students attending the University of Maryland this spring can spend their educational dollars on a course studying “fatness as intersectional.”

The “Intro to Fat Studies” course focuses on “Fatness, Blackness and Their Intersections” and students can earn three credits taking the General Education class at the university which lists tuition at $20,593.00 per semester for full-time undergraduate students from out of state.

Professor Sydney Lewis will reportedly be taking students twice a week on a journey into fatness, spotlighting “the relationship between fatness and blackness,” according to the course description as reported by The Center Square.

The course looks at “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.”

“Though we will look at fatness as intersectional, this course will particularly highlight the relationship between fatness and Blackness,” the description continues. “We approach this area of study through an interdisciplinary humanities and social-science lens which emphasizes fatness as a social justice issue.”

“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,” the description reads.

The Center Square report cited the Simmons University Library to note that fatmisia “is the hatred of fatness, versus fatphobic which means fear of fatness.”

The class is offered through the university’s Harriet Tubman Department of Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies which also offers other investment opportunities for educational dollars such as Gender, Race, and Computing; Quare/Queer Contentions: Exploration of Sexualities in the Black Community; and Feminist, Critical Race, and Queer Theories.

The department’s academic program manager Gwen Warman did not respond to the Center Square request for comments.

According to the university bio of Professor Lewis, her interests include black feminist theory and culture, black queer theory, mad studies, and disability justice.

“She earned her Master’s degree from the University of California, Santa Cruz in the History of Consciousness Program where she studied queer theory, race, and psychoanalysis,” the bio reads. “Lewis’s work and teaching strives to blur the boundaries between the academy, art, and activism.”

Richard Vatz, a professor emeritus at nearby Towson University, ripped the idea of the class helping students navigate in the real world.

“I don’t think if you went into a job interview and the interviewer said ‘What have you taken recently?’ and the respondent said, ‘Well, I’m taking a course in fat studies, but the intersection of a Blackness and fatness,’ that this would put you in a position to get much of a job, so the utility of this and the job market is probably pretty questionable,” he told The National News Desk.

“I have to be honest with you, this is kind of a laughable, laughable subject,” the retired professor continued. “This stuff is just ludicrous.”

Social media users reading about the offered course also found plenty to criticize.

Frieda Powers

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