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College of Arts and Sciences

Dr. Jason Whitesel

Interim Dir., WGSS; Assoc. Prof.,
Sociology and Anthropology
Office
RC Rachel Cooper 233
Office Phone
(309) 438-2947office
phone
Email
jawhit6@ilstu.eduemail
  • About
  • Education
  • Research

Biography

Jason Whitesel, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology and the Interim Director of the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program at Illinois State University. He teaches and researches LGBTQIA2S+ studies and queer theory; fat studies; sociological approaches to critical race studies; gender & sexuality studies; visual culture; and sociology of the body. He uses the theoretical paradigm of intersectionality in conducting qualitative research to examine marginality and privilege in social groups. He has authored Fat Gay Men: Girth, Mirth, and the Politics of Stigma; coedited a journal issue on “Fat Activism”; published in journals and anthologies; appeared on Good Morning America, The Takeaway, and BBC Radio 4’s Thinking Allowed; and he is a longtime member of the Racial, Democracy, Crime and Justice Network.

Current Courses

SOC 264.001 Racial, Social Class, And Gender Inequality

SOC 498.002 Professional Practice:In Sociology

SOC 264.001 Racial, Social Class, And Gender Inequality

PhD Sociology

Ohio State University
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BA Psychology

Purdue University

Book, Authored

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

Whitesel, Jason. 2026. "Storying and Restorying the Fat Body: Disrupting the Medicalized Master Narrative with Fat-Activist Counternarratives.” Narrative Knows No Boundaries, edited by Ann Ferrell and Martha Sims, pp. TBD. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi.
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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, 241 – 264. New York, NY: Routledge.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Whitesel, Jason. 2017. “The Disruptive Power of Social/Queer/Fat/Human/Countercultural Junk.” MELK: A Norwegian Queer Cultural Magazine, 4(1): 52 – 61.
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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.
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Other

Whitesel, Jason and Stefanie Snider, guest eds. 2021. "Fat Activism." A Special Double Issue of Fat Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Body Weight & Society 10(3): 215 – 353.
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Presentations


Whitesel, Jason. 2026. “The Artwork of Fat Gay Men from Girth & Mirth Clubs.” Abstract submitted to Midwest Sociological Society, St Louis, Missouri, March 26 – 29.

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Whitesel, Jason. 2025. “Queer Archives: Artistic Representation of Fat-Gay Clubs.” Queer Talks Lunch ‘n’ Learn Series, Illinois State University, Normal, Illinois, November 19.
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Whitesel, Jason. 2023. “Weight Bias and Fat Stigma.” Friedman Speaker Series, Gerald J. and Dorothy R. Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, Tufts University, Boston, Massachusetts, March 15.
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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.
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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.