Images of Disability

DFG Research Network: Comedy and Disability

Disability tends to be perceived as a serious matter across cultures, but humorous portrayals of people with disabilities have always existed. Nevertheless, there has been almost no theoretically and methodologically well-founded examination on the subject of ‘comedy and disability’, neither in cultural or media studies nor in social and educational sciences.

DFG project EEEM: Playful reflection on the perception of disability in film and theatre

What biases do we hold when we see actors with a disability in film or theatre? To confront us with the image we have of people with a disability, the DFG project EEEM will develop an interactive online game.

Narrative, expectation, experience: disability in contemporary European theatre and film

More and more often, characters with a disability are cast with individuals who have a genuine impairment. Having said that, the roles played in particular by people with a cognitive impairment in theatre and film is a topic that has hardly been researched much at all so far.

DFG Network "Inclusive Philology"

On 1 January 2023, the academic network funded by the German Research Foundation "Inclusive Philology. Literary Disability Studies in German-speaking Countries" (DFG project number 509035805), funded by the German Research Foundation, began its work.

DFG Conference: Relatives of People with Disabilities. Interdisciplinary Perspectives

This conference aims to be a pioneer in examining the role that relatives play and could play in the development, maintenance and promotion of sustainable social support structures from an interdisciplinary perspective.

DFG-Conference: Representaciones cómicas de la diversidad funcional: entre inclusión y exclusión

There are many jokes about disability. In the media, people with disabilities are increasingly appearing in comic contexts, e.g. in (sometimes award-winning) film comedies such as Colegas (Brazil 2013), Campeones (Spain 2018), Die Goldfische (Germany 2019) or The Peanut Butter falcon (USA 2019).

Nuevos enfoques en los Disability Studies

Spanish-language workshop on the presence of people with disabilities in theatre, film and dance.

Exchange between the research groups Rediart XXI, Universidad Carlos III Madrid, ReDiArt-XXI - Representación de la discapacidad en España and EEE - Erzählung, Erwartung, Erfahrung, Univeristy of Passau, about the research results of the past years.

Communities of laughter? Comedy and disability at the intersection of aesthetics and sociology

Although comedy and disability are often considered together in the arts (for example in film comedies), there are virtually no theoretically and methodologically sound discussions of this topic in the cultural or social sciences, let alone a joint consideration of 'disability and comedy' from the dual perspective of literature (film, theatre) as a symbolic and social system.

Cuba Excursion - Diversity and Inclusion in Cuba

Student Excursion to the Caribbean Island Nation Becomes an Extraordinary Cultural Experience.

Embracing diversity - in dealing with a foreign culture, as well as in interacting with people with disabilities - was the central challenge of a student excursion to Cuba.

Behinderung. Kulturwissenschaftliche Ansätze

Die Tagung diente einem Gedankenaustausch der Autorinnen und Autoren des "Handbuchs Behinderung, einem Kulturwissenschaftlichen Handbuch", das Anfang 2021 im Verlag Metzler (Stuttgart) erschien (Herausgeberin: Prof Dr Susanne Hartwig).

DFG Conference: Inclúsion, integración, diferenciación

How do people with cognitive disabilities express themselves in the theatre? How is a film about visually impaired characters created in which they themselves take part? These and other questions will be addressed at a DFG conference on inclusion, integration and differentiation at the Chair of Romance Literatures and Cultures at the University of Passau.