Hello folks,
Just joined the clubhouse, and thought I'd introduce myself a bit more than I ever have out in the other part of Dims. I've made a couple of very good friends in the short time I've been posting (not quite a year yet), and one of them was kind enough to give me the gift that keeps on giving-a Dimensions Clubhouse membership. So to that person, I say, Thanks a ton!
I'm in my thirties, I'm in my third year of a PhD program in English (specifically American literature) in Washington, DC, and I also am a graduate teaching assistant. Probably the most interesting thing about me is school, so I'll talk a little but about that.
My area of focus is contemporary American lit and popular culture. In particular, I am working in an emerging academic field known as fat studies. A lot of research falls under the heading of fat studies, but I mostly look at representations of fat in literature, TV, film, and culture. I've attended a few academic conference and given papers that were either wholly or partly about fat studies, and my first publication will be in an edited volume called "The Fat Studies Reader" which will be published hopefully before the year is out by the University of California Press. I TA this semester for a course on the Short Story, and I'm preparing for my field exam and finishing up my course work now. So, life is always stressful!
I'll be in Boston in April for a conference, and will be heading to France this summer for another conference, which is really cool (and too expensive). Since a lot of the existing academic work on fat focuses on white women, a lot of my work looks at how fat intersects with other identities affiliated with race, gender, and sexuality, and the papers I will be presenting in Boston and France are works in that vein. What is really great about the conference in Boston is it is the most visible place for fat studies scholars to present their work, so I always look forward to meeting other folks doing similar work to mine since, as you can imagine, none of the professors in my department work in fat studies. My advisor works in the fields of queer theory and disability studies, so I also use those theories in my work as well.
Hope I don't sound too much like a self-important windbag, but it does seem pertinent to people who are interested in being a part of Dimensions. There are three questions I usually get when I tell people I'm a grad student, so I'll answer them for you-
1) Do you plan to teach? Yes, that is the plan. Tough job market, but I love the classroom and wouldn't want to be anywhere else.
2) What is fat studies? Tough to describe. It runs the gamut from medical and nutritional work (of the HAES variety) to psychological and sociological work to literary and artistic and philosophical work. Anything which looks at fat people without the intention to pathologize or stigmatize fat individuals would be fat studies research, I guess. To give you an idea of what fat studies work looks like, here's the title of my paper in the FS Reader-
The fat of the (border)land: Food, flesh, and hispanic masculinity in Willa Cather's 'Death Comes for the Archbishop.'
3) What is the great American novel? I'll give you three novels I wouldn't think of teaching an American lit survey class without-
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
The Great Gatsby
The Bluest Eye
Are they the greatest? Don't know. Feel free to add your own.
OK, I've rambled on enough. Its great to be here, and I look forward to integrating myself into the cool clique here at the clubhouse. If there's anything I've left out that you want to know, please ask (or not, no pressure or anything, lol).
PS-the reoccurring question I get from people I have communicated with through Dims is, Is your avatar a picture of you? Alas, the answer is no, since I do not own a digital camera or any digital images of me. I am something of a luddite, 'tis true.
Just joined the clubhouse, and thought I'd introduce myself a bit more than I ever have out in the other part of Dims. I've made a couple of very good friends in the short time I've been posting (not quite a year yet), and one of them was kind enough to give me the gift that keeps on giving-a Dimensions Clubhouse membership. So to that person, I say, Thanks a ton!
I'm in my thirties, I'm in my third year of a PhD program in English (specifically American literature) in Washington, DC, and I also am a graduate teaching assistant. Probably the most interesting thing about me is school, so I'll talk a little but about that.
My area of focus is contemporary American lit and popular culture. In particular, I am working in an emerging academic field known as fat studies. A lot of research falls under the heading of fat studies, but I mostly look at representations of fat in literature, TV, film, and culture. I've attended a few academic conference and given papers that were either wholly or partly about fat studies, and my first publication will be in an edited volume called "The Fat Studies Reader" which will be published hopefully before the year is out by the University of California Press. I TA this semester for a course on the Short Story, and I'm preparing for my field exam and finishing up my course work now. So, life is always stressful!
I'll be in Boston in April for a conference, and will be heading to France this summer for another conference, which is really cool (and too expensive). Since a lot of the existing academic work on fat focuses on white women, a lot of my work looks at how fat intersects with other identities affiliated with race, gender, and sexuality, and the papers I will be presenting in Boston and France are works in that vein. What is really great about the conference in Boston is it is the most visible place for fat studies scholars to present their work, so I always look forward to meeting other folks doing similar work to mine since, as you can imagine, none of the professors in my department work in fat studies. My advisor works in the fields of queer theory and disability studies, so I also use those theories in my work as well.
Hope I don't sound too much like a self-important windbag, but it does seem pertinent to people who are interested in being a part of Dimensions. There are three questions I usually get when I tell people I'm a grad student, so I'll answer them for you-
1) Do you plan to teach? Yes, that is the plan. Tough job market, but I love the classroom and wouldn't want to be anywhere else.
2) What is fat studies? Tough to describe. It runs the gamut from medical and nutritional work (of the HAES variety) to psychological and sociological work to literary and artistic and philosophical work. Anything which looks at fat people without the intention to pathologize or stigmatize fat individuals would be fat studies research, I guess. To give you an idea of what fat studies work looks like, here's the title of my paper in the FS Reader-
The fat of the (border)land: Food, flesh, and hispanic masculinity in Willa Cather's 'Death Comes for the Archbishop.'
3) What is the great American novel? I'll give you three novels I wouldn't think of teaching an American lit survey class without-
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
The Great Gatsby
The Bluest Eye
Are they the greatest? Don't know. Feel free to add your own.
OK, I've rambled on enough. Its great to be here, and I look forward to integrating myself into the cool clique here at the clubhouse. If there's anything I've left out that you want to know, please ask (or not, no pressure or anything, lol).
PS-the reoccurring question I get from people I have communicated with through Dims is, Is your avatar a picture of you? Alas, the answer is no, since I do not own a digital camera or any digital images of me. I am something of a luddite, 'tis true.
