FEARING THE BLACK BODY, the racial origins of fat phobia

283pp., illus., paperback, New York, 2019

Winner of the 2020 Body and Embodiment Best Publication Award, given by the American Sociological Association.

"As a sociologist with a rich understanding of social history and cultural studies, Sabrina Strings asks and answers new and immensely generative questions about the ways of thinking that rule the world. Her astute analyses reveal the ways in which seemingly innocent aesthetic judgments about women's bodies register the effects of deep historical currents of thought and practice." George Lipsitz, author of How Racism Takes Place

"This accessible academic title ... makes a heavily cited case that modern society’s idolization of thinness is less rooted in medical science than in racist ideas born during the Enlightenment." The New York Times

Sabrina Strings is Chancellor’s Fellow and Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Irvine. She was a recipient of the UC Berkeley Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellowship with a joint appointment in the School of Public Health and Department of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley.