Fat
by Hanne Blank
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Pub Date Nov 12 2020 | Archive Date Dec 12 2020
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Description
Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.
Public enemy. Crucial macronutrient. Health risk. Punchline. Moneymaker. Epidemic. Sexual fetish. Moral failing. Necessary bodily organ. Conveyor of flavor. Freak-show spectacle. Never mind the stereotype, fat is never sedentary: its definitions, identities, and meanings are manifold and in constant motion.
Demonized in medicine and public policy, adored by chefs and nutritional faddists (and let's face it, most of us who eat), simultaneously desired and abhorred when it comes to sex, and continually courted by a multi-billion-dollar fitness and weight-loss industry, for so many people “fat” is ironically nothing more than an insult or a state of despair.
In Hanne Blank's Fat we find fat as state, as possession, as metaphor, as symptom, as object of desire, intellectual and carnal. Here, “feeling fat” and literal fat merge, blurring the boundaries and infusing one another with richer, fattier meanings.
Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.
Advance Praise
“Hanne Blank's characteristically honest, creative, wickedly funny, and sharply insightful voice comes through on every page of this eminently readable book. Blank reveals fat as polysemic, at once mundane and hidden, sexually charged, and socially vexed. Fat is a scholarly ethnography of an everyday object that manages to be a genuine page-turner.”
– Quill Rebecca Kukla, Georgetown University, USA
Available Editions
| ISBN | 9781501333286 |
| PRICE | $14.95 (USD) |
Featured Reviews
Ivana G, Reviewer
Object Lessons published by Bloomsbury is a series of short and beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. It's one of my favourite series, and I'm always thrilled when there is a new release to be published.
In Fat, cultural historian Hanne Blank, discusses fat from all angles, picking apart definitions, meanings and stereotypes. She looks at fat as vetoed in today's healthy life craze (which only leads to more fat being consumed in secret and guilt prevailing), while simultaneously praised by chefs and Keto fetishists. She also discusses fat and sex, which I found particularly interesting, and will be looking up further works from her on the subject. Blank presents fat as both desired and hated when it comes to sex, drawing appalling examples from her life as a fat woman.
In Hanne Blank's world, Fat is a state, a possession, a metaphor, a symptom, an object of desire. It's a delightfully interesting and well argued read!
Reviewer 577067
This is one of the best Non fiction books I have read this year. I would say I, as a fat woman, am fairly well read when it comes to body positivity, health at every size and fat politics, but this book was just something else. Almost half literary prose and half political I feel the need to read this again and again. Theres lots to let sink in about this book! I think I need to now get all of the authors backlist!
Verity H, Reviewer
Fat by Hanne Blank is an excellent addition to the Object Lessons series by Bloomsbury. I appreciate the freedom that expert authors are given to explore their subjects and, in the case of Fat, this freedom was particularly well utilised.
Fat explores the biology of fat, the sociological implications of fat, fat as food, fat as part of our human bodies and the intersection of fatphobia with racism, sexism and classism. Interesting and thought-provoking, this is a well-rounded book recommended to all, but particularly to the well-rounded.
Thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for providing a review copy in exchange for honest feedback.
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