hey I think your writings on disorderly eating are really interesting and wondering if you have book/reading recs for more stuff along those lines? trying to read my way out of an eating disorder I guess and I’ve read a lot of nonfiction, memoirs, fiction, but bristling at a good deal of it being pro-carceral
hi anon, so, after 20 years of EDs and 13 diagnosed, i can confidently say that you can't read your way out of an eating disorder. confidently because i've read thousands of books and would definitely not be in this position if such a thing was possible. only way to get out of the hole (not your grave) is to prioritize your own comfort, fullness, friendship, and self-respect, and surround yourself with people who wholeheartedly want the same for you, including when it is messy and inconveniences them. this may not cure you but it'll make you feel way less shitty, and you should try it in the ways that you can. phd doctor's orders suggestion.
anyway. some books! my novel Failure to Comply and collection Differential Diagnosis (esp. the latter) discuss disorderly eating, autonomy, harm reduction, violence. I also wrote this call to action for non-fat, ED-having accomplices to fat liberation such as myself, for @trans-axolotl's psych survivor zine. So if you like my writing and haven't read those yet, you can start there. Here are a few others:
Franz Kafka, A Hunger Artist (THE BLUEPRINT!!!!)
Megan Milks, Margaret and the Mystery of the Missing Body
Ruth Ozeki, My Year of Meats
For online resources check Marquisele Mercedes's website, Stefani Echeverría-Fenn's Bulimia Journals.
I also just got proofs back of a peer-reviewed article on disorderly eating my colleague and I are going to have published in the fall. Feel free to dm me your email and I can send it to you. Some pieces you might like from the bibliography:
Anderson, Patrick. So Much Wasted: Hunger, Performance, and the Morbidity of Resistance. Durham: Duke up, 2010.
Atherton, Emma. “Moralizing Hunger: Cultural Fatphobia and the Moral Language of Contemporary Diet Culture.” Feminist Philosophy Quarterly 7.3 (2021): 1–36.
Berlant, Lauren, and Jordan Alexander Stein. “Cruising Veganism.” glq 21.1 (2015): 18–23.
Bell, Mebbie. “Re/Forming the Anorexic ‘Prisoner’: Inpatient Medical Treatment as the Return to Panoptic Femininity.” Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies 6.2 (2006): 282–307.
Bell, Rudolph M. Holy Anorexia. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014.
Heyes, Cressida J. “Foucault Goes to Weight Watchers.” Hypatia 21.2 (2006): 126–49.
Holmes, Su, Helen Malson, and Joanna Semlyen. “Regulating ‘Untrustworthy Patients’: Constructions of ‘Trust’ and ‘Distrust’ in Accounts of Inpatient Treatment for Anorexia.” Feminism and Psychology 31.1 (2021): 41–61.
Ramjan, L. M., and Gill, B. I. “An Inpatient Program for Adolescents with Anorexia Experienced as a Metaphoric Prison.” ajn: The American Journal of Nursing 112.8 (2012): 24–33.
Stapleton, Karyn, Sarah L. Evans, and Catrin S. Rhys. “Ana as God: Religion, Interdiscursivity and Identity on Pro-Ana Websites.” Discourse and Communication 13.3 (2019): 320–41.
There's also the IMSJ's special issue on critical ED studies, such as it is, but I haven't read all of these and can't vouch for whether or not they're any good. Worth a look still!
Hope this helps + take care!
