The Politics of Volume

Call for Papers

FATTIES - THE POLITICS OF VOLUME

NICA/ASCA Symposium organized by the Political Fatties (Vasiliki Lazaridou, Hodan Warsame and Sofia Apostolidou)

5 January 2018.

Confirmed Keynote Speaker: Dr Cat Pausé.

NICA/ASCA Symposium Organized by the Political Fatties (Vasiliki Lazaridou, Hodan Warsame and Sofia Apostolidou),

5 January 2018

Confirmed Keynote Speaker: Dr Cat Pausé

Being a fatty is a political position. The system that devalues fat embodiments is not arbitrary and it does not exist in a vacuum. It is part of a bigger picture, one that classifies white, masculine, straight, “healthy” bodies as the ones worthy of respect, or humanity. Even within the community of fat activism, the same problematic aesthetics are reproduced: smooth, white bodies, free of hair or cellulite, bodies that perform only a specific type of femininity. These aesthetics, based on centuries of colonialism and racism, continues to be reproduced even inside the supposedly politically critical communities of fat, queer, and anarchist activists.

The way fatness is represented by the media creates a very specific (that is, limited) space for fat bodies which, in turn, dictates a certain way of perceiving one’s self and thus strictly shapes fat peoples’ sense of embodiment. On the other side of this, the recent growth of “body positivity” narratives in media from the english speaking paradigm has motivated many people to come together and think critically around body size and its politics, highlighting at the same time the need for nuanced and intersectional critique. A critique that analyzes fatness not as a monolithic embodiment but instead as an experience situated across identities, affiliations, cultures and geographical location.

We call for researchers, activists and artists that problematize, analyze and reflect on the ways fatness is experienced, marginalized, and represented both within mainstream media, institutions and media as well as within body positive/fat acceptance spaces.

Topics may include (but are not limited to) :  

• Fat Activism
• Fatness and Queerness
• Fat femininities/fat masculinities  
• Fat representation and globalisation
• Cyber communities and fat identity
• Fetish and kink communities
• Fatness and race
• Fatness and ethnicity
• Fatness and colonialism
• Fatness and family structures
• Fatness and institutional discrimination
• BBW/BHM scenes and spaces
• Fatness and trauma
• Fatness and sexual capital/the politics of desire
• Feeders/Feedees, Bears/Chasers: fat related sexual interactions and communities
• Sizeism in fatshion
• Sizeism within fat acceptance discourses
• Fatness and posthuman embodiments
• Fatness and medicalisation
• Concepts of fatness across cultural/geographical locations
• Gendered or sexualised fatness in public space
• The aesthetics of fat
• Fatness and architecture/public spaces
• Fatness in the performing arts
• Fatness and disability
• The politics of eating/ food moralism

Research papers for 15/20 minute presentations

Workshop proposals

Performances/other artistic media

Journalistic and/or polemical presentations

Proposals should be no longer than 300 words and include a short bio.

Proposals should be submitted to politicalfatties@gmail.com no later than November 20th 2017. For more visit politicsofvolume.wordpress.com