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Dead weight : essays on hunger and harm / Emmeline Clein.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2024Edition: First editionDescription: 275 pages ; 25 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9780593536902
  • 0593536908
Subject(s):
Contents:
Prologue -- On our knees -- Sin/symptom -- Red virgin, red heifer -- "Too sick to trust" : inside eating disorder treatment -- Elegy after gross misunderstandings -- Anatomical remodeling of the heart -- Starving the cyberverse -- Autobiography in it girls -- Too far : glowing girls and virtuous illness -- What's your number? -- Skinny, sexy, seizing -- Coda: Against dissociation feminism.
Summary: "A personal and cultural look at the dark underbelly of Western beauty standards and the lethal culture of disordered eating they've wrought. In Dead Weight, Emmeline Clein tells the story of her own disordered eating alongside and through other women from history, pop culture and the girls she's known and loved. Tracing the medical and cultural history of Anorexia, Bulimia, and Orthorexia, Clein investigates the economic conditions underpinning our eating disorder epidemic, and illuminates the ways racism and today's feminism have been complicit in propping up the thin ideal. While examining GOOP, Simone Weil, pro-anorexia blogs, and the flawed logic of our current methods of treatment, Clein also grapples with the myriad ways disordered eating has affected her own friendships and romantic relationships. Dead Weight makes the case that we are faced with a culture of suppression and denial that is insidious, pervasive, and dangerous, one that internalizes and promotes the fetish of self-shrinking as a core tenet of the American cult of femininity. This is replicated in our algorithms, our television shows, our novels, and our relationships with each other. A sharp, perceptive, and revelatory polemic for readers fascinated by the external forces shaping our lives, Dead Weight is electrifying, unapologetically bold, and fiercely compassionate"-- Provided by publisher.
Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Shelving location Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Dr. James Carlson Library NonFiction New 616.8526 C624 Available 33111011117088
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library NonFiction New 616.8526 C624 Available 33111011247570
Adult Book Adult Book Northport Library NonFiction New 616.8526 C624 Available 33111011151897
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

A personal and cultural look at the dark underbelly of Western beauty standards and the lethal culture of disordered eating they've wrought

"An authoritative, generous, and persuasive debut that I wish I could go back in time and gift to my teenage self."--Melissa Febos, author of Girlhood

"Electric with insight, and suffused with a strange, stubborn tenderness--a deep regard for what intimacy, hope, and resistance might look like in a world where women are taught to devote their lives to destroying themselves." --Leslie Jamison, author of The Recovering

In Dead Weight, Emmeline Clein recounts her struggle with disordered eating alongside the stories of other women: historical figures, pop culture celebrities, and the girls she's known and loved. Through the story of her own sickness, the raw recollections of interview subjects, and dispatches from social media rabbit holes, Clein challenges stereotypes and renders statistics and science deeply personal and urgent. From her first encounters with icons of the thin ideal to her years ricocheting between hunger and bingeing, from the pro-anorexia blog that unexpectedly saved someone's life to the residential treatment centers that make so many people sicker, from a wrenching elegy for those who didn't survive to a manifesto for sisterhood, solidarity, and recovery, Clein uncovers girlhood's appetites and injuries to reveal the economic, cultural, and political history of an epidemic.

Dead Weight makes the case that we are faced with a culture of suppression, self-denial, and self-harm, an insidious, pervasive, and dangerous American cult of femininity rooted in racism and misogyny. Tracing the medical and cultural histories of anorexia, bulimia, and binge eating disorder and investigating the recent rise of orthorexia, Clein reveals the economic conditions underpinning diet culture, and grapples with the ways today's feminism can be complicit in propping up the fetish of self-shrinking.

Drawing on a kaleidoscopic array of sources--from cult classic films like Jennifer's Body to the aughts-era Tumblrverse, the writing of Simone Weil, Chris Kraus, and Anne Boyer to the medieval canon of anorexic saints--Clein calls for a feminism that doesn't compel women to shrink their bodies to increase their value, urging radical acceptance of all our appetites instead: for food, connection, and love. A sharp, perceptive, and revelatory polemic about the external forces that shape our lives, Dead Weight is electrifying, unapologetically bold, and fiercely compassionate.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 257-275).

Prologue -- On our knees -- Sin/symptom -- Red virgin, red heifer -- "Too sick to trust" : inside eating disorder treatment -- Elegy after gross misunderstandings -- Anatomical remodeling of the heart -- Starving the cyberverse -- Autobiography in it girls -- Too far : glowing girls and virtuous illness -- What's your number? -- Skinny, sexy, seizing -- Coda: Against dissociation feminism.

"A personal and cultural look at the dark underbelly of Western beauty standards and the lethal culture of disordered eating they've wrought. In Dead Weight, Emmeline Clein tells the story of her own disordered eating alongside and through other women from history, pop culture and the girls she's known and loved. Tracing the medical and cultural history of Anorexia, Bulimia, and Orthorexia, Clein investigates the economic conditions underpinning our eating disorder epidemic, and illuminates the ways racism and today's feminism have been complicit in propping up the thin ideal. While examining GOOP, Simone Weil, pro-anorexia blogs, and the flawed logic of our current methods of treatment, Clein also grapples with the myriad ways disordered eating has affected her own friendships and romantic relationships. Dead Weight makes the case that we are faced with a culture of suppression and denial that is insidious, pervasive, and dangerous, one that internalizes and promotes the fetish of self-shrinking as a core tenet of the American cult of femininity. This is replicated in our algorithms, our television shows, our novels, and our relationships with each other. A sharp, perceptive, and revelatory polemic for readers fascinated by the external forces shaping our lives, Dead Weight is electrifying, unapologetically bold, and fiercely compassionate"-- Provided by publisher.

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