FYI. (Note, this conference is not affiliated with the WSC.

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Fat Studies Sub-conference

DATE: May 27 – May 30, 2017
LOCATION: Ryerson University, Toronto, Ontario
This year, Women’s and Gender Studies et Recherches Féministes will include an exciting one-day, four session sub-conference focusing on Fat Studies. In keeping with the Congress theme of “From Far and Wide—the next 150”, this sub-conference will consider the ways that Fat Studies has gone from a perceived fringe interest to an established scholarly canon with significant practical and theoretical impacts. The Fat Studies sub-conference will take up the evolution of Fat Studies and Fat Activism in relation to intersectional subjectivities with a specific focus on fat in the Canadian context. By exploring both the continued stigmatization against fat people and the emergence of fat celebration, this sub-conference will allow for robust and critical dialogue to emerge on the specific, contested and intersected subjectivities of fat people. The day will allow scholars from across Canada to reflect on the interdisciplinary impact of Fat Studies as an extension of and response to women and gender studies scholarship and other engagements with social justice.

Topics may include, but are not limited to:
-the intersections of fat, parenting and reproduction
– colonization and fatness
– race, racialization and the fat body
-Canadian policy responses to the perceived “obesity epidemic”
-differential experiences of fat across genders; fat femininities, fat masculinities, trans/fat
-fat, disability, mobility, ableism and sanism
-fat sexualities: fetishization of fat sexuality, celebration of fat sexiness
-queering fat
-fat time: ways that fat bodies disrupt traditional chronologies
– the medicalization of fat and the production of “obesity”
-urban fat and rural fat
– fat pedagogies
-fat and food; fat eating practices
-healthism and anti-fat stigma as a new morality
-representations (and erasures) of fat bodies in popular culture, art, music
-fat activism and the celebration of fat bodies
– emerging tensions in the fields of critical “obesity” studies and fat studies

In order to submit, please sent a 250-300 word abstract as well as 3-5 keywords by email.
**You must be a current member of WGSRF to submit an abstract.**
To join, please visit http://www.wgsrf.com/.

To submit, or for more information, please contact the sub-conference organizers directly:
Dr. Deborah McPhail (Deborah.McPhail@umanitoba.ca) and Dr. May Friedman (may.friedman@ryerson.ca)
Deadline: December 16, 2016. No late proposals will be accepted.

Abstracts in French are welcome and encouraged.