University of Maryland offers 'fat studies' course on how 'fatness' and 'Blackness' intersect
A University of Maryland "fat studies" course aims to examine the intersection of "fatness" and Blackness and how they intersect with "oppression."
An upcoming class at the University of Maryland will ask students to examine how "fatness" relates to "Blackness" and is a "social justice issue."
"Intro to Fat Studies: Fatness, Blackness and Their Intersections," is being offered as a General Education course to students for the spring semester. The three-credit course can be taken to fulfill the university's Distributive Studies or Diversity course requirements to graduate, according to the university website.
The course description says it "examines fatness as an area of human difference subject to privilege and discrimination that intersects with other systems of oppression based on gender, race, class, sexual orientation, and ability."
"Though we will look at fatness as intersectional, this course will particularly highlight the relationship between fatness and Blackness," the description continues. "We approach this area of study through an interdisciplinary humanities and social-science lens which emphasizes fatness as a social justice issue. The course closes with an examination of fat liberation as liberation for all bodies with a particular emphasis on performing arts and activism as a vehicle for liberation and challenging fatmisia."
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The course is being taught by Sydney Lewis, who is a senior lecturer at the university's Harriet Tubman Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, according to her university bio.
All 20 spots for the class are full, with eight students on the waitlist.
The course drew criticism from a retired professor at a nearby university. Richard Vatz, a professor emeritus at Towson University, mocked the idea that the subject would prepare students for the real world, in comments to The National News Desk.
"I don't think if you went into a job interview and the interviewer said 'what have you taken recently?' and the respondent said, 'Well, I'm taking a course in fat studies, but the intersection of a Blackness and fatness,' that this would put you in a position to get much of a job, so the utility of this and the job market is probably pretty questionable," Vatz said.
"I have to be honest with you, this is kind of a laughable, laughable subject," he continued. "This stuff is just ludicrous."
Fox News Digital reached out to the University of Maryland and Lewis for comment.
Over the summer, Brown University offered a pre-college summer course on the "Politics of Fatness," providing students with the opportunity to explore "how fatphobia intersects with other systems of oppression."
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