Author Description

Discussions of fat, and its relationship to both health and beauty, are ever-present in the modern age, yet how did people in the early modern period understand and experience fatness? This interdisciplinary cultural history--edited by an art historian, a historian, and a specialist in literary studies--explores early modern conceptions of fatness as both an aesthetic judgement and social experience. The book explores the topic of fat through a broad spectrum of thematical and geographical perspectives, examining medical texts and health regimens concerning corpulence, competitions in weight-gaining among German women in childbed, as well as the contemporary connection between fatness and sexuality. It considers the multivalent imagery of the classical God Silenus's body, the praise of fat women in Italian anti-humanist satire, and the view of the fat body as a threat to the authority of Spanish administrative officials. Finally, it explores the meaning of fattening animals in the context of early modern anxiety about the human/animal divide. In approaching fatness from such varied angles, this book goes beyond teleological narratives and dichotomic arguments to explore the complexity and ambiguity with which fat bodies were perceived and constructed in early modern Europe.