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Narrating Disability in Literature and Visual Media: Introduction

  • Anita Wohlmann EMAIL logo and Marion Rana EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: March 6, 2019
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Abstract

This introduction to the special issue attempts to map the intersections between disability studies on the one hand and literature and cultural studies on the other hand. We discuss concepts of disability as a social construction before we turn to literary and cultural approaches to disability, which involve controversies and questions about genre, narrative frames, recurring themes, and form. The last section gives an overview of how literary representations of disability resonate with life writing and identity theories.


Corresponding authors: Assistant Prof. Dr. Anita Wohlmann, Department for the Study of Culture, University of Southern Denmark, Campusvej 55, 5230 Odense, Denmark; and Dr. Marion Rana, Stiftung kreuznacher diakonie, Leben mit Behinderung, Pfarrer-Reich-Straße 1, 55566 Bad Sobernheim, Germany

Acknowledgments

This special issue was initially conceptualized and proposed to ZAA by Marion Rana. When she decided to continue her work with disability outside the university, she asked Anita Wohlmann to step in and take over the editing of the issue. Our co-authored introduction reflects the collaborative formation process of this issue and our shared interest in raising awareness for the importance of disability within Anglophone and American literary studies. This paper and special issue was written and edited with support from the research program “The Uses of Literature” at the University of Southern Denmark (SDU), funded by the Danish National Research Foundation (grant no. DNRF127).

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Published Online: 2019-03-06
Published in Print: 2019-03-26

©2019 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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