Occupy This Body
Description
OCCUPY THIS BODY: A Buddhist Memoir is the story of Religious Studies Professor Sharon A. Suh's struggle to overcome a childhood of forced-feeding, emotional neglect, and cruelty from her Korean immigrant mother who battled and eventually succumbed to her own eating disorders. As she matures and awakens to her own body, she must come to terms with her past suffering and how it shapes her experiences as a Korean American woman raised and educated within predominantly upper middle-class white America. In this memoir, she shares her discovery, study, and embrace of Buddhism to help her heal from past trauma and lay bare the cultural silence surrounding abuse and mental illness in Asian American families. Occupy This Body offers an intimate portrait of growing up in Long Island as a second generation Korean American in what appears to be a model minority household where respect for elders, sacrifice, hard work, and academic achievement hold sway. But, beneath this veneer of success that takes her from the suburbs to Harvard and into a marriage of seeming perfection and eventual divorce, she struggles with the devastating effects of growing up with an abusive mother who suffered from anorexia, bulimia, and mental illness as she directed her wrath, and her eating disorders, onto her. To survive, she must learn to feel at home in her ever-changing body and begin to occupy her own space in the world that has often rendered her invisible as an Asian American woman. Tackling the myth of the Asian American model minority, the shame around mental illness and abuse in Asian American families, and the pervasive pressures aimed at disciplining female bodies, Suh strips away the psychic and social bandages that have shielded her wounds from public view, reimagining Buddhism as an empowering and transformative framework for reclaiming, and occupying, our imperfect bodies. Occupy This Body thus confronts the heavy burdens of silence and invisibility that still threaten to ensnare Asian American women in America today. Appealing to readers interested in Buddhism, women of color, the Korean-American immigration experience, abuse and eating disorders, Occupy This Body contributes to the growing literature in memoirs, about the body, second-generation immigrant experiences, and what it, means to be a person of color in contemporary America. Theoretically grounded in Buddhist studies, feminism and the growing scholarship on the body, Occupy This Body is a deeply, nuanced personal memoir written in an accessible voice by a professor of religion who learned to keep her childhood trauma, and history of enforced eating disorders, a secret from all but her closest friends.
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ISBN:
9781896559674
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Grouping Information
Grouped Work ID | 66567464-d6ca-668a-20df-620f4a6c58b5 |
---|---|
Grouping Title | occupy this body |
Grouping Author | sharon a suh |
Grouping Category | book |
Grouping Language | English (eng) |
Last Grouping Update | 2024-01-26 15:04:47PM |
Last Indexed | 2024-05-15 22:54:07PM |
Solr Fields
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accelerated_reader_reading_level
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author
Suh, Sharon A.
author2-role
hoopla digital
author_display
Suh, Sharon A.
display_description
OCCUPY THIS BODY: A Buddhist Memoir is the story of Religious Studies Professor Sharon A. Suh's struggle to overcome a childhood of forced-feeding, emotional neglect, and cruelty from her Korean immigrant mother who battled and eventually succumbed to her own eating disorders. As she matures and awakens to her own body, she must come to terms with her past suffering and how it shapes her experiences as a Korean American woman raised and educated within predominantly upper middle-class white America. In this memoir, she shares her discovery, study, and embrace of Buddhism to help her heal from past trauma and lay bare the cultural silence surrounding abuse and mental illness in Asian American families. Occupy This Body offers an intimate portrait of growing up in Long Island as a second generation Korean American in what appears to be a model minority household where respect for elders, sacrifice, hard work, and academic achievement hold sway. But, beneath this veneer of success that takes her from the suburbs to Harvard and into a marriage of seeming perfection and eventual divorce, she struggles with the devastating effects of growing up with an abusive mother who suffered from anorexia, bulimia, and mental illness as she directed her wrath, and her eating disorders, onto her. To survive, she must learn to feel at home in her ever-changing body and begin to occupy her own space in the world that has often rendered her invisible as an Asian American woman. Tackling the myth of the Asian American model minority, the shame around mental illness and abuse in Asian American families, and the pervasive pressures aimed at disciplining female bodies, Suh strips away the psychic and social bandages that have shielded her wounds from public view, reimagining Buddhism as an empowering and transformative framework for reclaiming, and occupying, our imperfect bodies. Occupy This Body thus confronts the heavy burdens of silence and invisibility that still threaten to ensnare Asian American women in America today. Appealing to readers interested in Buddhism, women of color, the Korean-American immigration experience, abuse and eating disorders, Occupy This Body contributes to the growing literature in memoirs, about the body, second-generation immigrant experiences, and what it, means to be a person of color in contemporary America. Theoretically grounded in Buddhist studies, feminism and the growing scholarship on the body, Occupy This Body is a deeply, nuanced personal memoir written in an accessible voice by a professor of religion who learned to keep her childhood trauma, and history of enforced eating disorders, a secret from all but her closest friends.
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eBook
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eBook
id
66567464-d6ca-668a-20df-620f4a6c58b5
isbn
9781896559674
last_indexed
2024-05-16T04:54:07.866Z
lexile_score
-1
literary_form
Non Fiction
literary_form_full
Non Fiction
local_time_since_added_br
Year
primary_isbn
9781896559674
publishDate
2020
publisher
The Sumeru Press
recordtype
grouped_work
subject_facet
Electronic books
title_display
Occupy This Body
title_full
Occupy This Body [electronic resource] / Sharon A. Suh
title_short
Occupy This Body
topic_facet
Electronic books
Solr Details Tables
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---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
hoopla:MWT14418137 | Online Hoopla Collection | Online Hoopla | eBook | eBook | 1 | false | true | Hoopla | https://www.hoopladigital.com/title/14418137?utm_source=MARC&Lid=hh4435 | Available Online |
record_details
Bib Id | Format | Format Category | Edition | Language | Publisher | Publication Date | Physical Description | Abridged |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
hoopla:MWT14418137 | eBook | eBook | English | The Sumeru Press | 2020 | 1 online resource (212 pages) |
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Bib Id | Item Id | Grouped Status | Status | Locally Owned | Available | Holdable | Bookable | In Library Use Only | Library Owned | Holdable PTypes | Bookable PTypes | Local Url |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
hoopla:MWT14418137 | Available Online | Available Online | false | true | false | false | false | false |