Recently in 5. bodies/material experiences Category

1 a. The Unruly Woman: Gender and the Genres of Laughter Chapter 1: Pig Ladies, Big Ladies, and Ladies with Big Mouths. Feminism and the Carnivalesque.

b. In this chapter Rowe brings up several pop culture icons from Shakespeare to contemporary forms to explain how fat women are portrayed in their representations as disruptive, loud, excessive, outrageous, etc. in physical (space) and verbal (language, laughter) actions. A definition of topos is given as women who disrupt norms of femininity and the social hierarchies that are in place (male>female) through their excess and outrageousness. Rowe provides a list of what characteristics make up the unruly woman as one or many of the following:

Rowe continues by explaining how the definition of grotesque functions as an exaggeration of incompleteness, process, and change; the grotesque body exaggerates its bulges, processes, etc.
Fat grotesque woman is:
**huge
**eats and drinks in excess
**has voracious sex
**an obscene joke maker
c. Are there any fat woman in pop culture that are not portrayed as the woman on top or in a grotesque manner? Are these fat women seen in a positive light only when they are nearing the end of their liminal space and have become "normal" and no longer seen as a fat body?

d. Sara provided this chapter in PDF form to me via an email.

e. Rowe, Kathleen. The Unruly Woman: Gender and the Genres of Laughter. United
States: University of Texas Press, 1995. Print.

2 a. Rosanne: Let them eat junk part two AKA "The Oreo Scene: you're the Or ee ooest"
b.
c. I specifically looked at the first two minutes of this clip from Roseanne. The scene is set up with the largely overweight Roseanne sitting at the Kitchen table. Her sister Jackie who is very thin comes to pick up her son Andy who has been with Roseanne all day. Roseanne in this particular scene completely embodies what has been deemed as the grotesque body.
Roseanne Grotesque Body
huge huge
eats (in excess) eats (in excess)
joke maker (obscene) joke maker (obscene)
The dialogue between the "normal" body Jackie represents and the "excessive, outrageous" body Roseanne represents is important. Jackie picks up her baby and proclaims, "My child has oreo breath". Roseanne replies, with obscene humor, "well, relax, that's just because we were drinking an oreo flavored liqueur". Jackie brings up a list that she made explaining not to give Andy junk food. To which Roseanne replies, "You can spit and you can swear, but you will NOT come into my house and refer to oreos as junk food"! The next exchange is what I found particularly interesting. Roseanne asks Jackie to calm down by explaining that she used to give that stuff to her kids all the time. Jackie prods back my saying, "that maybe that's the reason why you kids tuned out the way they did". The grotesque body, Roseanne, has pushed her grotesqueness onto her children by allowing them her excessive, fat habits.
d. I think it would be interesting to look into other grotesque bodies in pop culture to examine how their lifestyles either do or do not affect (they become grotesque as well) those around them.
e.. I found this youtube clip after I read Rowe's chapter one from Unruly Woman, which mentioned Roseanne. I went to youtube and typed in "Roseanne eating".
3 a. In Solidarity With Those Who Have Been Called "Too Much"
b. Bevin Branlandingham
c. Too much: too fat, too loud, too feminine, too slutty.......and the list of toos can go on and on. Bevin uses this specific post to address the deemed excessive physicalities and/or actions she has faced or her friends have faced to find productivity within these spaces. The opposite of this identity is what she calls "beige" people; people who lack color in life. Are these people the opposites to the excessive? Bevin continues by explaining people's uncomfortability with her excessive being in the dating scene. She explains the excessive as loving hard, caring and giving large amounts of love and attention, and making lover's feel as though they were the only other person in a room full of people. Bevin continues by explaining that this excessive way of living via flamboyance, glitter, nurturing, love...takes a specific kind of patience to deal with. This is interesting to me because it seems to be emphasizing the fact of difference or uncomfortability with one's excessive behaviors and/or bodies. Does this mean that excessive/flamboyant bodies can only share space comfortably with other excessive/flamboyant bodies??
d. How does this idea of excess/flamboyancy function with other marginalized groups/people? What Bevin describes as "beige" individuals, are these dominant, hegemonic bodies within society?
e. Sara recommended the blog to me. I went to the blog and began reading different entries and this one seemed to fit in the best with my other sources.
f. Branlandingham, Bevin. The Queer Fat Femme Guide to Life. Cutline by Chris Pearson, 2006. Web. 20 Dec. 2011.

"unreal" bodies who are reduced in order to become "real" #quet2011

— Briana (@Bribird6) November 28, 2011

at the US-Mexico border,"immigrant"is identified through control,containment,surveillance, checks:marking these bodies as "unreal" #quet2011

— Briana (@Bribird6) November 28, 2011

Space=numerous, varied, open, connected variously, possibility, becoming, incomplete... #quet2011

— Briana (@Bribird6) November 28, 2011

"unreal"individuals are vulnerable to violence of norms. simultaneously they must rely on those very same norms for protection #quet2011

— Briana (@Bribird6) November 28, 2011

how do we give new meanings to current norms in order to make "unreal" lives livable/recognizable?#quet2011

— Briana (@Bribird6) November 28, 2011

#quet2011 performativity from a focus of survival, not identity.Who then is #real or #unreal?

— Briana (@Bribird6) November 28, 2011

1.a. Revolting Bodies? The Struggle to Redefine Fat Identity (Chapter 7 The Queerness of Fat)
b. Kathleen Le Besco
c. Le Besco draws on connections between fat and queer identity in chapter 7. She speaks of a cause seeking rhetoric in which their is a strong desire to fix one's queerness or fatness. She gives the example of searching for a "gay" or "fat" gene that may help to explain or correct the queer of fat identity of someone. Why in our culture is there this need to explain away modes of being? This mode that she talks of being explained away is fat and queer people, which seem to be manifesting some underlying problem, deviancy.
Stigmatized Individuals
1) Hypersexual
2) Animalistic
3) Overvisible
Le Besco continues by explaining to see fat as a subset of queerness and fat admiration as another part of sexuality. To draw upon fat within the gay community she mentions the ostracization of fat, where gay men have become obsessed with appearance and normality. Although is overall seen as a feminizing characteristic (roundness, softness) in the lesbian community women can gain strength through fatness. Whereas, gay men acquire fatness and achieve woman-like qualities and weakness.
[UN]Outing
Le Besco refers to outing in fat politics as the use of language by skinny individuals. For example, "I'm so fat" is a call for help/reassurance that the individual who proclaims this is actually not fat. It is also used for this group of people to bond i.e. "Oh, you're not fat". People who are truly fat then do not have these conversations because it would out them. Le Besco gives three categories in which fat people fall within
1) Out and About-owning and embracing one's fatness
2) Silent types- the downplaying of the relevance on one's size
3)Traitors-she speaks of the person who once stood for and embraced fatness is
now against of ambivalent
d. As I was reading I kept thinking of fat people in pop culture and where they fall within fat politics and/or where I think they fall. Do these people exert agency through their fat identities. Are they out and about, silent, or traitors? I think it may be helpful to read a couple other chapter out of this book in particular. What I was really hoping for was to get various perspectives from different authors from Le Besco's The Fat Studies Reader. It is unfortunately checked out from our library :(.
e. Sara recommended this book after discussion of my first annotated bibliography. While meeting with Sara in her office she gave me the call number for the book. I checked this book out from Wilson library here at the U.
f. Le Besco, Kathleen. Revolting Bodies?:The Struggle to Redefine Fat Identity. USA: University of Massachusetts Press. Book.

2.
a.Glamour Magazine: Beth Ditto's New Clothing Line
b. glamour.com
c.
Beth, singer and fashion icon, was quoted as saying "I want to make clothes for big girls". British department store Evans agreed. After looking at the clothing line, which was prompted and inspired by Beth, I was shocked to see average to thin women modeling the clothes. Because Beth herself is so big into fashion and because the line was influenced by hew own clothing, why wasn't Beth modeling? What is the face of Evans? Why wasn't Beth used? Is Beth what LeBesco deems as Out and About? According to the Glamour article the answer is yes. They state, "She's plus-sized and proud of it. She wears brightly patterned skin-tight dresses, loud accessories and all the other stuff that fussy old style folks would say is a no-no for anyone over size 2. And, you know what? They're all total DOs on her, especially as she's so full of spunk and confidence". What if she wasn't so full of "spunk" and confidence? Would this change Beth's ability to reach a large audience? Would she be seen as lazy or disgusting instead of confident and forward?

d. I searched Beth Ditto on google because Scotty had recommended using Beth for an informal source. I pulled up the cover on NME, which he had specifically mentioned. After pulling of various videos and article on Beth I came across her clothing line which came out in 2009. I would like to find more on Beth today and where and how fat identity comes to light in her life and if it does.
e. Lomrantz, Tracey. "Beth Ditto's New Clothing Line: Cheap & Chic & Plus Sized".
Glamour.com. 18 June 2009. Web 12 Dec. 2011.

3.
a.Big Fat Deal (A Blog that proclaims to be happy with whatever weight you happen to be).
b. Monique "mo pie" van den Berg, Weetabix, and Jen "jen fu" Larsen
c. The Big Fat Deal began in 2004 because Monique was in search of a blog which focused on the portrayal of weight in pop culture in both a negative and positive light. Monique boasts that her focus is fat positivity and writes, "We've talked on this blog about all kinds of contributors to overweight--from genetics to sexual abuse to illness. It's fucking COMPLEX, and people who are just like, "Die, fatties, die!" negate that complexity and simply make themselves look simplistic and dumb. Not to mention the fact that a person's body is nobody else's business, when it comes down to it". Monique here when referencing genetics is channeling Le Besco and her explanation of a cause seeking rhetoric. Where there seems to be this urge to correct fatness by trying to/figuring out ways to repair the deviancy.
d.I would like to read more of the comments posted on different enteries. There are tons of comment on various topics from celebrities, advocacy, weight loss, fatism, fat positivity, and more.
e. Larsen, Jen, Monique "mo pie" van den Berg, Weetabix. "Big Fat Deal". July 2004. Web. 12 Dec. 2011.

Annotated Bib #3

Source one
1) Queering the Color Line
2) Siobhan Somerville: Race and the Invention of Homosexuality in American
Culture
3) The author dissects the ways in which society has come to view constructions of racial identity as natural. Somerville exposes the ways in which racist ideologies have come to frame science invent race and homosexuality. She uses the mulatto figure represented in American fiction to expose how the mixed body inverts notions of gender formation. Desire of the other is a central theme in shaping the social identities of mixed bodies. Deviance of these bodies becomes linked with constructions of homosexuality. Somerville highlights the ways in which mulattos are framed as ambiguous figures disrupting normative standards. Somerville writes of how scientific discourse of sexuality was developed through ideologies of race. How does then does this then frame queers of color in relation to homo-normativity?
4) Cherrie Moraga's Loving the War Years is a great resource.
5) I found this book working on another project. Suzanne Bost author of Mulattas and Mestiza's heavily referenced this book in her work.
6) Somerville, Siobhan B. Queering the Color Line: Race and the
Invention of Homosexuality in American Culture. Durham,
[NC: Duke UP, 2000. Print.

Source Second
1) Bodies That Matter
2) Judith Butler
3) In chapter one Bodies That matter Butler engages with the work of Irigaray. Butler seeks to bring the body back into view from the realm theory. In many ways it seems that one cannot truly live their body in that we can only mimic gender. Butler discusses the ways in which materiality is experienced through discourse, what is material is produced though power. Thus the materialization of bodies is in constitution of norms. Butler writes " If gender is the social construction of sex, and if there is no access to this "sex" expect by means of its construction, then it appears not only that sex is absorbed by gender, but that "sex" becomes something like a fiction" (Butler, XV). What interest me is that there is not sex before construction; therefore any performance of gender is mimicry. Than I am lead to wonder if any non normative performance mocks this construction and as such is a form of resistance?
4) Butler critiques Irigaray's theories of which I am not familiar. I feel that reading Irigaray may be necessary to further understand this text. As well as Nella Larson author of Passing, which I am slightly familiar.
5) This text was a suggestion by a classmate. I do own the book, however I have not been able to read previous to this project. Obviously Butlers work is familiar to most in gender studies.
6) Butler, Judith. "Introduction/ Bodies That Matter." Introduction. Bodies That
Matter: on the Discursive Limits of "sex" New York: Routledge, 1993. XI-27. Print.

Source Three
1) Paris is Burning http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggreEl4zV3Y
2) Documentary by Jennie Livingston
3) This film documents the lives of New York's "Drag Queens" of color. Many times throughout the film people spoke of the need to create oneself. The film is centered around Ball's in which there is a competition for recognition. The goal of the competition was to look as natural as you could. If you could pass in the outside world you have made it. There was a need to be the best that one could be. The Ball was a place where one could appear to be rich, successful, beautiful, all of the things the outside world denied them. For some there was the opportunity to find the acceptance of a family. The part that drew me the most was in the stealing of clothing. There was a symbolic meaning in this as well, in which one steals an identity a self from the white man's world in order to be seen.
4) Someone mentioned this source in class, I looked it up on youtube where there was a full version.
5) Paris Is Burning. Prod. Jennie Livingston, Barry Swimar, Claire Goodman,
Meg McLagan, Nigel Finch, and Davis Lacy. Dir. Jennie Livingston. By Jonathan Oppenheim, Paul Gibson, Maryse Alberti, and Stacia Thompson. [Prestige], 1990. Youtube.

In this section of my annotations I want to focus on different ways bodies are constructed. This is the first time I will be attempting non-traditional sources, I hope they work!!.
My first source is a video on youtube of a procedure called Labiaplasty.

a) Labiaplasty: Understanding the Anatomy



b) The poster of the video is Otto Placik MD of bodysculpter.com

c) I chose this video to accompany another source. I was also interested in the language used by the male doctor when describing the female anatomy. I think it is very interesting how the doctor creates analogies with objects when describing the body, he uses terms like mound of venus or a procedure called an un-roofing. What is the standard of genital beauty??

d) Two additional sources I think that would be useful are Somerville's Queering the Color Line. Chapter one: Scientific Racism and the Invention of the Homosexual body. Also Emily Martins the Sperm and the Egg.

E) I found this video on youtube while looking at a lecture on Labiaplasy and Material Bodies.

F) Placik, Otto. "Labiaplasty: Understanding the Anatomy - YouTube." YouTube -
Broadcast Yourself. 11 June 2008. Web. 31 Oct. 2011.
.

Second: Thinking Gender 2010: Material Bodies and States of Feminism.

b) Neslihan Sen Anthropology and Geography, University of Illinois at Chicago.

c) This source as stated above is of a part of a panel discussion on Material Bodies and the Stated of Feminism. Sen gives a great talk on the construction of the ideal vagina. She discussed the ways in which science has informed the normative selling of the vagina. She states that almost all of the images of vagina's in medical journals look the same. Even one taken from "Our Bodies Ourselves", which is just sad. Vaginal reconstruction has become a booming business. There have been shows dedicated to them such as Doctor 90210. Sadly I had seen that show when I was a teenager in the 90's. Are vaginas elegant?

e) I found this source on Youtube with the search term Bodies and Material experience.

f) Sen, Neslihan. "Thinking Gender 2010: Material Bodies and States of Feminism,
Sen - YouTube." YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. Center for the Study of
Women, 27 Apr. 2010. Web. 31 Oct. 2011. v=P-o1lGEUPnM>.
Third : Chris Bruce, Transgender Bodybuilder

b) David Moye

c) This article was found in the weird news section of the Huffington Post. Problem in itself that people are "weird" as in not normal...ummm news source!! Well chose this article because of the way in which the body is depicted. As a body builder transgender person Chris Bruce choses to live her body in a interesting way. It seems that even transgender bodies are also constructed in a normative way. By this I mean that it seems there is an expectation for transgender people to also fit into normative standards as closely as possible?

 

d) I found this article just reading the news.

e) Moye, David. "Chris Bruce, Transgender Bodybuilder, Competes As A Woman 20
Years After Doing It As A Man." Breaking News and Opinion on The Huffington
Post. Huffington Post, 28 Oct. 2011. Web. 31 Oct. 2011.
bruce_n_1062737.html>.

The three sources I chose are a basis for the way in which we may come to see the body. I though that I would start looking at Descartes because I feel that one cannot truly explore material bodies without exploring the ways in which we come to view our bodies in relation to space. When we see the term bodies, a set of assumptions arises as to what a bodies is and means. What does it mean to have a body and are we in control of the material experience? How does power work through and within bodies?

First Source

Descartes, René, and John Cottingham. Meditations on First Philosophy: with
Selections from the Objections and Replies. Cambridge [Cambridgeshire: Cambridge UP, 1986. Print.
Descartes work is widely used in realm of academic sciences. The goal in the meditation is to lay a firm groundwork upon which scientific objectivity could be laid. Descartes theory was that all knowledge of the senses (body) could be called into doubt. I chose Descartes because I thought that it was importance to provide the framework though which much scientific work is done. The main idea set forth in The Meditations is that the way to come to true "knowledge" is by disregarding a material existence. We have come to find the true objectivity is implausible and yet so much is based upon this notion.
Second Source

Feminist Perspectives on the Body
Lennon, Kathleen, "Feminist Perspectives on the Body", The Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy (Fall 2010 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = .
The article published sheds light on the problems within philosophical frameworks of the body as being a tied to nature and thus separated from the mind. This article takes a detailed look at how feminists approach the body and bring it back into view by deconstructing the Cartesian spit. I choose this article because it not only gives a detailed explanation of feminist relation to the body but the writer uses many sources through with I can further my research. This source provides me with differing ways I can approach the subject of bodies and Materiality. I found this source by using the google term "Material Bodies".
Third Source

Haraway, Donna Jeanne. Modest₋Witness@Second₋Millennium.FemaleMan
₋Meets₋OncoMouse: Feminism and Technoscience. New York: Routledge, 1996. Print.
I Choose Modest Witness because I enjoy the approach Haraway approaches the subject of materiality. Haraway writes, "Biology discursively establishes and performs what will count as human in powerful domains of knowledge and technique". (Haraway, 217). She asserts that it is a fabrication and that the body is a conduit of power, but who's or what power is unknown. These fabrications are rooted in history. This got me thinking about bodily agency and if it is ever possible to be free of the invisible hand as it were. I am reminded that power is always present in the material. What kinds of bodies are we becoming?

Through the exploration of my first annotated bibliography I am looking at various marginalized bodies that each pose very different struggles. However, through a closer understanding of each, these differing marginalized bodies are positioned in such a way that all produce/work/struggle/empower/etc. through a similar/same entangled web.

Belonging, Bridges, and Bodies
Malhotra, Sheena and Kimberlee Perez. "Belonging, Bridges, and Bodies." NWSA
Journal 17.2 (2005): 47-68. JSTOR. Web. 27 Sept 2011.

This article looks at access through/around/to/and within feminist academic spaces and the bridging/bridgework that takes place. The authors arrange interviews and critique the lives of three pairs of women in various academic spaces and how bridgework has found its [lack of] place within their relationships through workings of power, community, and consciousness. Then, through these various analyses, the authors introduce what they see as empowering and transgressive bridgework by means/use of intentionality and self-reflexivity.

I found this article on JSTOR by searching "bodies and materialities".

Navigating Public Spaces: Gender, Race, and Body Privilege in Everyday Life
Kwan, S.. "Navigating Public Spaces: Gender, Race, and Body Privilege in Everyday Life. " Feminist Formations 22.2 (2010): 144-166. GenderWatch (GW), ProQuest. Web. 5 Oct. 2011.

This article uses Peggy McIntosh's theorizing of white privilege to discuss body privilege and the oppression it embodies. Again, interviews, of 42 women and men who are deemed as "overweight", are conducted to show how body privilege is conducted through race and gender. Body privilege is further pushed/complicated/understood to discuss issues of body consciousness and management. Kwan explains like white privilege, body privilege is, "...constructed through, among others, economic, social, cultural, and medical lenses...[and]...specifically...how fat intersects with other signifiers, such as gender and race, to influence everyday interactions, thereby acknowledging how networks of power work in complex, multiple, and seemingly innocuous ways-namely through interactions and self-surveillance" (3).

I found this article through GenderWatch by searching under "bodies and material experiences".

Demonic Grounds: Black women and the cartographies of struggle
McKittrick, Katherine. Demonic Grounds. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,
2006. Book.

I am looking specifically at the introduction from Demonic Grounds, Geographic Stories. McKittrick discusses the ways in which black women's bodies have been rendered un-geographic by a "lack" of a distinguishable, written history and through displacement, famine, imperialism, and loss of security. Although these histories cannot always be traced via a mapped, written, detailed history, memories/histories can be told through bodymemory. She says, "Bodymemory is passed down and reinterpreted through generational remembrances, teachings, forewarnings, and advice...Bodymemory is corporeal continuity, which moves through time and recognizes where 'permanent' racial-sexual time-spaces appear in dominant texts " (49).

I had read Katherine McKittrick for Black Feminist Geographies in the Spring of 2011. McKittrick's theory of bodymemory really resonated with me, which is why I chose to look at her work again. I am curious to look at how her theory of bodymemory can/does play out on/though the bodies of other marginalized groups