Fat and Sassy A Performance Masked as a Thesis

Abstract

This thesis has taken on many forms using both technical and conceptual structures. Firstly, out of pure refusal to produce during a global pandemic with very little guidance, access, and support from any institution designed to do so, this thesis initially was then an act of defiance, a performance given to appease the academic institution while providing the necessary written documentation that I did in fact “do the damn thing.” Secondly, I found myself going back to the significance of a thesis serving as written evidence and proof of production and performance. This document will live in the archives of the academic institution that is the University of Washington for - well I guess forever. Accepting that while this thesis serves as the necessary evidence in the appropriate format to prove that I in fact “did the damn thing,” it also in essence serves as my posterity. Likely my only posterity.Much of my work, as documented throughout this thesis both visually and written, will be autobiographic and autoethnographic. My artwork often becomes illustrations and demonstrations of anecdotal qualitative research in understanding social, cultural, political, and socio-physiological experiences, specifically within the intersections of gender, sexuality, socioeconomic status, disability, and physicality. This thesis will be written surrounding these same topics using a variety of sources, both formal and informal. It should be stated that within an autoethnographic framework the value of resources from formal to informal is invariable. The words of Betty Cooper, my deceased great-grandmother holds just as much value and significance as the United States Department of Health and Human Services, and therefore should be viewed and accepted as such.