We all know that a lot of nonsense courses at American colleges are stuffed with pork ... but now that's literally true, because the University of Maryland is offering a spring semester course on "fat studies."
"Intro to Fat Studies: Fatness, Blackness and their Intersections" is taught by Dr. Sydney Lewis, and is advertised as follows:
The course 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. This course will particularly highlight the relationship between fatness and Blackness. 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.
FYI: Fatmisia is a term that relates to the hatred of fatness.
This read to me like someone took every woke word in the woke dictionary and just printed them in random order.
Lewis is a senior lecturer at the Harriet Tubman Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and students who enroll in her course will earn three general education credits.
Richard Vatz, a professor at a nearby university, said this area of study was "kind of a laughable, laughable subject" and "just ludicrous."
Pretty fatphobic there, Rich.
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
What an extremist!
Follow Ian on Substack or X (@ighaworth).
P.S. Now check out our latest video 👇
