Disability Performance as Human Categorization: Performances of Deviance and Merit in Historic Perspective (A02)

• Subject Area: Theatre and Media Studies
• Term: since 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 442261292

The research project investigates how disability performances as practices of human categorization have changed over the past 200 years. The focus lies on the historical comparison of three diverging genres of merit presentation: freak and side shows, the presentation and staging of the Paralympics, and contemporary theatre and dance performances by disabled artists. The project aims to determine how, in the longue durée in relation to presentation practices of disability performances, the entanglement and interplay of deviance and merit change or recur at different paces.

• DFG Programme: Collaborative Research Centres
• Subproject of: SFB 1482: Studies in Human Categorization
• Applicant Institution: Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz
• Project Head: Professor Dr. Benjamin Wihstutz