Join Countway Library and the MCPHS Center for Health Humanities for an Author Series event with Rachel Thomas, where she will discuss recent comic, Shrink, which seamlessly blends memoir and research, graphic medicine, and future directions for her work. Q&A to follow.

Book sales and signing to follow, provided by Comicopia.

Light refreshments will be provided. 

About the Book:

Derided by her high-school peers for being overweight, Rachel finally found a sense of purpose and belonging in a promising career as an EMT—that is, until her body got in the way.

Shrink is a work of graphic medicine that depicts the emotional and physical realities of inhabiting a large body in a world that is constantly warning about the medical and social dangers of being “too fat.” This smart and candid book challenges the idea that weight loss is the only path for a fat person and encourages the reader to question the prevailing cultural and medical discourse about fat bodies.

Seamlessly weaving the most current research on the fatness debate with her own experiences of living in a fat body, Thomas lays bare society’s obsession with size and advocates for each of us to push back on body weight bias and determine what’s right for our own health and well-being, both physical and mental. (From the publisher.)

About the Author: 

Rachel M. Thomas, PhD is Assistant Professor of Comics, Graphic Novels, and Sequential Arts at Teesside University.

She is an interdisciplinary artist/researcher whose work blurs the boundaries between traditional media, technology, and bio-fabrication.