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History Women

Fat and the Body in the Long Nineteenth Century

Meanings, Measures, and Representations

edited by Amy Shaw & Lynn Kennedy

Publisher
University of Toronto Press
Initial publish date
Jan 2025
Category
Women, History, Women's Studies
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781487553401
    Publish Date
    Jan 2025
    List Price
    $60.00
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9781487553395
    Publish Date
    Jan 2025
    List Price
    $60.00

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Description

In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the body was a key focus of discourse. Fat and the Body in the Long Nineteenth Century animates discussion and analyses of fatness, highlighting how corporeal expectations fit into larger social systems and showing how interpretations have shifted over time. This collection examines a host of primary sources – including literature, art, medical treatises, journalism, political cartoons, soldiers’ letters home, and popular fiction – to identify trends in how fat was perceived and promoted in the English-speaking world over the long nineteenth century.

 

Divided into four thematic sections, the book addresses epistemologies, artistic and literary representations, the turn towards quantification and measurement, and the connections to imperialism and colonialism. It explores the complex debate about the meaning of fat and its signalling of health, beauty, moral strength, and class status. The book shows how contemporary presentations and discussions of fat offer insights into ideals of gender and race and the processes of imperialism and of professionalization in the social sciences and medicine. By tracing how debates shifted over time, the book ultimately reveals that there was no universal interpretation of fat as a positive or negative characteristic throughout the nineteenth century.

About the authors

Amy J. Shaw is an associate professor in the Department of History and Religion at the University of Lethbridge.

Amy Shaw's profile page

V. Lynn Kennedy is an associate professor in the Department of History and Religion at the University of Lethbridge.

Lynn Kennedy's profile page

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