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Department of Sociology and Anthropology

Dr. Jason Whitesel

Joint Appointment in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Sociology and Anthropology
Office
Schroeder Hall - SCH 347
Office Phone
(309) 438-8637office
phone
Email
jawhit6@ilstu.eduemail
  • About
  • Education
  • Research

Biography

Dr. Jason Whitesel writes, teaches, and gives talks on queer studies, stigmatized groups’ embodied resistance to injustice, and the intersectionalities of race/ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, body weight, appearance, age, disability, and nationality, and how interlocking identities define some lives as less/more valuable than others. He has authored Fat Gay Men: Girth, Mirth, and the Politics of Stigma, and coedited a special issue on “Fat Activism” for Fat Studies, in addition to publishing in peer-reviewed journals and collections. He is jointly employed in Sociology and Gender Studies at Illinois State University.

Current Courses

400.002Independent Research in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

292.001Introduction to LGBTQ Studies

292.002Introduction to LGBTQ Studies

342.001Sociology Of The Body

PhD Sociology

Ohio State University
___________________

BA Psychology

Purdue University

Book, Authored

Whitesel, Jason. 2014. Fat Gay Men: Girth, Mirth, and the Politics of Stigma, New York, NY: NYU Press.

Book, Chapter

Whitesel, Jason. 2023. “Big-Gay Men Entering the Twenty-First Century: Global Perspectives on Fat-Affirming Subcultures and Imagery.” The Contemporary Reader of Gender and Fat Studies, edited by Amy E. Farrell, pp. TBD. New York, NY: Routledge.
Whitesel, Jason. 2021. "Review of Scholarship on Fat-Gay Men." International Handbook of Fat Studies, edited by Cat Pausé and Sonya Renee Taylor, 217 – 236. New York, NY: Routledge.
Whitesel, Jason. 2019. “Big Gay Men’s Performative Protest against Body Shaming: The Case of Girth and Mirth.” Body Battlegrounds: Transgressions, Tensions, Transformations, edited by Chris Bobel and Samantha Kwan, 129 – 143. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press.

Journal Article

Whitesel, Jason. 2022. “On Becoming a Queer Scholar Doing Body-Image Research.” Racial Democracy, Crime & Justice Network: Our Stories 3(3): 1 – 26.
Whitesel, Jason and Stefanie Snider. 2021. "Interactive Nature of Fat Activism and Fat Studies Within and Outside Academia." Fat Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Body Weight & Society 10(3): 215 – 220.
Whitesel, Jason. 2017. “Intersections of Multiple Oppressions: Racism, Sizism, Ableism, and the ‘Illimitable Etceteras’ in Encounters with Law Enforcement.” Sociological Forum 32(2): 426 – 433. *Top 20 Most-Downloaded Article, year-end 2017.
Whitesel, Jason. 2017. “The Disruptive Power of Social/Queer/Fat/Human/Countercultural Junk.” MELK: A Norwegian Queer Cultural Magazine, 4(1): 52 – 61.
Whitesel, Jason and Amy Shuman. 2016. “Discursive Entanglements, Diffractive Readings: Weight-Loss-Surgery Narratives of Girth & Mirthers.” Fat Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Body Weight and Society 5(1): 32 – 56.

Presentations

Whitesel, Jason. 2019. “Big Gay Men Challenging Body Shame.” Panel on Body Battlegrounds: Transgressions, Tensions, and Transformations. National Women’s Studies Association Annual Conference, San Francisco, California, November 14 –17.
Whitesel, Jason. 2019. “Queer 101: What is Queer?” Panel on Queering/Querying Bodies. Annual Meeting of the Midwest Sociological Society, Chicago, Illinois, April 17 – 20.

*Older publications and presentations available upon request.