BBRG PRESENTS: ‘Fat. Gay. Gay. Fat.’

Toward a Comparative Genealogy of Sexuality and Body Size

Lynne Gerber, Research Fellow, The Religion, Politics, and Globalization Program at UC Berkeley

Lecture
Thursday, March 18, 2010
4:00 PM to 5:30 PM
tbd

Body size and homosexuality have been potent sites of moral panic in the 20th century United States. Fat people and gay people have been discursively linked in a range of popular and academic representations and targeted for efforts at containing what is widely viewed as their excessive desires. Yet few efforts have been made to place the two issues in historic conversation, tracing common genealogies and making a case for productive comparative work. This paper will be a step in that direction, laying out similarities and differences between moral and medical discourses on fatness and homosexuality historically and examining two contemporary efforts at changing homosexuality and body size: a Christian weight loss program and an ex-gay ministry.

Organized by: Beatrice Bain Research Group