Centennial Honors College
Western Illinois University
Undergraduate Research Day 2012
Podium Presentation
Sublime Starvation: Anorexia Nervosa and the Allure of the Sublime
Antoinette Brown
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Everett Hamner
English & Journalism
The concept of the sublime is one that is often too difficult to put into words. It can mean
different things for different people, but is often most associated with ideas of fear/terror
and of beauty. While some philosophers believe that there is the sublime, and there is
beauty, I feel that beauty is part of sublimity and their intersection becomes visible in the
eating disorder Anorexia Nervosa.
In this paper, I address various theorists and philosophers dealing with the sublime, but
the main focus is on how we can further understand eating disorders when
understanding the aestheticism of beauty and sublimity. Introducing both elements of
fear and beauty, I show that there is an unseen and often misunderstood facet of
anorexia, something that people do not see as a driving force that compels the sufferer
to exacerbate the disorder. Anorexia Nervosa thrives on the appeal of that which is
terrifying and dangerous, but also that of an ethereal beauty.
In my presentation, I will engage secondary research materials about anorexia and the
sublime, as well as the theories of the sublime offered by Longinus, Burke, and Kant.
My primary goal is to show that there is another aspect to anorexia that many do not
see, aside from or perhaps within the biological, social, and psychological causes, there
is something much more complex, the sublime.