Comedy, Humor, and Disability at the Intersection of Cultural, Media, Social and Educational Studies

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Susanne Hartwig
• Subject Area: General and Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies ; Educational Research on Socialization, Welfare and Professionalism ; Sociological Theory ; Theatre and Media Studies
• Term: since 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 534997547

While considered an impediment to good quality of life in most cultures, disability and people with disabilities have had their fair share of comedic representation in media. It is rather unfortunate that in spite of this, the theoretical and methodological discourse surrounding “comedy, humor, and disability” is non-existent. Scholarship on “comedy, humor, and disability” is sorely lacking in cultural and media studies as well as in social and educational sciences. The field is severely understudied and lacks comprehensive theories, extensive databases, and content analysis of the existing fictional and non-fictional texts. The question of the conditions under which comic depictions of disability promote positive images of people with disabilities is more topical than ever, considering the 2006 United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and in the context of inclusion. By examining comedy and its laughter as human reactions to limitations in abilities and to infringement of norms, the ambivalent potential of comedy concerning the topic of disability becomes immediately apparent: the community can laugh because of or despite the disability, at or with the people affected. The planned network will systematically explore the topic from three angles in three working meetings that build on each other. In the first meeting, different types of comedy will be examined in fictional and non-fictional contexts, along with the potential they offer for the inclusion and exclusion of people with disabilities. These two contexts differ fundamentally in terms of the seriousness or innocuousness of comedy. The second meeting will focus on media components of comic representations of disability. Again, the focus will be on the inclusive potential of the texts, especially those published on social media. Finally, in the third meeting, the didactic potential of “comedy, humor, and disability” will be developed. It addresses the question of the relevance of the results from the first two meetings in educational processes and how they can be brought to educational institutions (schools/universities), as well as to more informal spaces (such as blogs or social media). The aim is to develop didactic material to initiate or inspire inclusive educational processes. The project includes plans for working meetings with two book publications as the main output, developing a database, disseminating didactic material via social platforms, and an online lecture series. The network will consist of representatives from the fields of social, educational, literary, cultural, media, theatre, and film studies, as well as guests who are affected by disability or who are relatives of people with disabilities, whose inputs will add novelty to the artistic approach of the project.

• DFG Programme: Scientific Networks