Date of Award
May 2015
Degree Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy
Department
Communication
First Advisor
Leslie J. Harris
Committee Members
John W. Jordan, William M. Keith, Gwynne A. Kennedy, Kathryn M. Olson
Keywords
Citizenship, Fatness, Good Body, Motherhood, Visual Rhetoric
Abstract
The body, and visualizations of the body, serve as a way read appropriate consumption and citizenship: Weight operates as a key way to see literal consumption. U.S. citizenship is now commonly understood as consumptive bodily citizenship, where one's body, or one's child's body, communicates their civic standing. Drawing on three case studies concerning childhood obesity, this dissertation demonstrates how rhetorics of and about the fat body construct the public identity of good citizen and good mother.
Recommended Citation
Beerman, Ruth J., "Containing Fatness: Bodies, Motherhood, and Civic Identity in Contemporary U.S. Culture" (2015). Theses and Dissertations. 859.
https://dc.uwm.edu/etd/859