cfp: religion and fat

This call for papers came across my desk this morning and sounds fascinating! Please, someone who reads my blog be doing research in this area (or know someone who is!). Because SO VERY COOL.

~Anna

CFP—Special Issue of Fat Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Body Weight and Society on Religion and Fat, guest edited by Lynne Gerber, Susan Hill and LeRhonda Manigault-Bryant. 

This special issue of Fat Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Body Weight and Society explores the relationship between religion and fat. The editors invite papers on a variety of topics that address, for example, how particular religious traditions engage the fat body, or how religions define, circumscribe and/or understand fatness. We seek to answer questions such as: How is the fat body read in religious ways? What kinds of socio-cultural spaces do religions offer fat people? 

Potential topics might include, but are not limited to:

• Fat bodies as religious bodies
• The use of fat or fatness in religious texts
• Use of fat in theological discourse
• Fat in world religions
• Religious and/or moral dimensions of fat or fatness in popular culture
• Fat bodies and lived religion
• Religion and weight loss/weight gain
• The fat body as moral or immoral body in religious texts or objects

To be considered for inclusion in this special issue, please send a 200-250 word abstract and a current c.v. to Susan Hill (susan.hill@uni.edu) by March 31, 2014. 

Any questions about the topic can be directed to this e-mail, as well. Final submissions should be between 3000-6000 words, including all notes and references. If you wish to include reproductions of visual images with your essay, you will need to receive permission to do so from the artists/copyright holders of the image(s). All authors will need to sign a form that transfers copyright of their article to the publisher, Taylor & Francis/Routledge. 

Fat Studies is the first academic journal in the field of scholarship that critically examines theory, research, practices, and programs related to body weight and appearance. Content includes original research and overviews exploring the intersection of gender, race/ethnicity, sexuality, age, ability, and socioeconomic status. Articles critically examine representations of fat in health and medical sciences, the Health at Every Size model, the pharmaceutical industry, psychology, sociology, cultural studies, legal issues, literature, pedagogy, art, theater, popular culture, media studies, and activism. 

Fat Studies is an interdisciplinary, international field of scholarship that critically examines societal attitudes and practices about body weight and appearance. Fat Studies advocates equality for all people regardless of body size. It explores the way fat people are oppressed, the reasons why, who benefits from that oppression and how to liberate fat people from oppression. Fat Studies seeks to challenge and remove the negative associations that society has about fat and the fat body. It regards weight, like height, as a human characteristic that varies widely across any population. Fat Studies is similar to academic disciplines that focus on race, ethnicity, gender, or age.