University of Maryland offers ‘fat studies’ course on how ‘fatness’ and ‘Blackness’ intersect [Video]

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 …