Edinburgh German Yearbook 4: Disability in German Literature, Film, and Theater

Volume 4 focuses on disability in German literature, film, and theatre. Disability Studies is part of the broader discussion of difference and "otherness," of the politics of identity, human rights, ethics, and discrimination. It retrieves disabled figures from literature, film, and theatre and discusses them vis-à-vis "normalcy." Recently, Disability Studies has explored the binary of "able" and "disabled," strategies of exclusion, and the marginalization and suffering of the disabled body under social and medical structures of control. It is now entering a phase of positive reflection addressing the ontological politics of disability. Accordingly, this volume examines cultural representations of disability that raise questions about "the humane gaze" and posits disability as historically central to discussions of humanity, modernity, and social and moral behaviour in German-language literature, film, and theatre. Points of focus include blindness, physical deformity, injury, illness, and euthanasia.