1st Edition

YoungGiftedandFat An Autoethnography of Size, Sexuality, and Privilege

By Sharrell D. Luckett Copyright 2018
194 Pages 7 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

194 Pages 7 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

194 Pages 7 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

YoungGiftedandFat is a critical autoethnography of "performing thin"– on the stage and in life. Sharrell D. Luckett’s story of weight loss and gain and playing the (beautiful, desirable, thin) leading lady showcases an innovative and interdisciplinary approach to issues of weight and self-esteem, performance, race, and gender. Sharrell structures her project with creative text, interviews,... Read more

Foreword Bryant Keith Alexander

Acknowledgements

Before Pic

Introduction: Contextualizing the Conundrum

Chapter 1. Touched                                                

             Talk 'Fat' Session: Say it ain't so…daddy issues?

Chapter 2. Disappearing Acts

Chapter 3. Passing Strange

             Talk 'Fat' Session: Fractured

Chapter 4. Maintenance

Chapter 5. Weighted Loss

              Talk 'Fat' Session: Staging Life

Chapter 6. "YoungGiftedandFat" – (The Play)

Chapter 7. Fat Girl Futurity

After Pic

References

Index

Biography

Sharrell D. Luckett is Assistant Professor of Theatre & Performance Studies at Muhlenberg College. Her literary and embodied research is situated in Performance Studies, African American Studies, acting/directing theory, and Fat Studies.

YoungGiftedandFat is the best account of the intersection between body size, race, and gender available to the critical reader.

Sander L. Gilman, Author of Fat Boys and Fat: A Cultural History of Obesity

Hilarious and tragic, YoungGiftedandFat is as surprising and unexpected in its emotional candor, as it is familiar in its stories of coming-of-age fat in millennial America. Luckett reveals how "fatness" in US society disrupts notions of value and distorts experiences of childhood, adolescence, womanhood, selfhood, femininity, sex, and sexuality.

Stephanie L. Batiste, Associate Professor of English and Black Studies, University of California at Santa Barbara

Sharrell D. Luckett serves up a book worthy of the "thick peculiarities" its expansive title promises. Weighty in its theoretical complexity, the writing is refreshingly clear and compelling – the hallmark of a masterful storyteller.

Sara Warner, Associate Professor, Department of Performing & Media Arts, Cornell University

YoungGiftedandFat, the book and the performance, belongs in the center of our dialogues on autoethnographic and autobiographical performance because it is not only risky, it also relentlessly challenges traditional views of race, class, gender, power, sexuality, and fat.

M. Heather Carver, Professor and Chair of Theatre, University of Missouri-Columbia