Inclusive Philology. Literary Disability Studies in the German-Speaking Countries

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Klaus Birnstiel
• Subject Area: German Literary and Cultural Studies (Modern German Literature) ; General and Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies ; European and American Literary and Cultural Studies
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 509035805

According to statistics, disability currently affects about 15 % percent of the global population in the course of their lives. It is not surprising therefore that the representation and cultural negotiation of disability has always found its way into literature. Although the term 'disability' itself is of recent origin, world literature has known literary representations of embodied difference since the very beginning. Within the social and cultural self-understanding of phenomena of disability, literature occupies a prominent place that has not yet been adequately explored by research in German and other literary studies, particularly within the German academic realm. The scientific network will lay out and apply theoretically well-established research approaches of disability studies in the broader sense, which view disability as a cultural and social category of difference, to the field of literary studies. Paralleling already established difference-based theoretical approaches such as Gender Studies and Postcolonial Studies, Literary Disability Studies will make an innovative contribution to the development of literary studies in the German-speaking world. The network pursues three main, interrelated goals. First, it brings together on a regular basis people interested in Literary Disability Studies from German Studies, English and American Studies and Romance Studies and establishes a structured working environment. Secondly, it develops an elaborate theoretical toolkit for the literary and cultural analysis of representations of disability in literary texts and other media configurations. Third, it undertakes case studies in literary history, especially in eighteenth-century German literature, classical modernism, and contemporary literature, revealing the multifaceted representation and discursive negotiation of disability. In this way, the network contributes to the theoretical sharpening of Literary Disability Studies on the one hand and to the revision of the literary canon from a perspective of Disability Studies on the other.

• DFG Programme: Scientific Networks
• International Connection: Switzerland
• Co-Investigator: Dr. Johannes Görbert