Proposals are invited to a Special Issue of Feminist German Studies on “Intersections of Gender and Disability in German Studies”

Guest Editors: Judith Bierwolf, Hanna Bingel-Jones, Rachel MagShamhráin, Michaela Schrage-Früh

Although disability studies have brought forth a range of new scholarly approaches in recent years, the significance of gender as an analytical category within heuristic and critical understandings of dis/ability has not yet received sufficient attention in the context of German culture. Some recent scholarship (G. Thomas Couser, Kim Q. Hall, Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, Rahel More, Ashton Applewhite) has examined the politics of the gendered body in relation to disability, age, race, and class in a global context. In the field of German studies, researchers have examined gendered experiences of disability in higher education as well as the historical genesis of disability as a social category (Pascal Angerhausen, Anne Waldschmidt). However, much remains to be explored in German studies, particularly in relation to the depiction of disability at its intersection with gender.

In this issue we seek contributions from a diverse and inclusive group of scholars that explore both critically and creatively the various productive ways in which disability and gender do and can interact in a Germanophone context (with an emphasis on literary and cultural studies). The issue hopes to attract articles on the ways in which disability—understood here as the product of socially constructed norms governing what the human body is supposed to be and do—has been represented in relation to gender in German-language literatures and cultures diachronically, examining how cultural productions have either reinforced or critiqued cultural constructions of disability and related constructs of gender. We also invite examination of how feminist and queer approaches in disability studies can be employed to draw out ableist and sexist assumptions, disrupting ideas of the normative body and thereby critiquing social and cultural practices which rely on such ideas of normativity. Overall, this issue aims to establish disability as a productive and challenging category within feminist scholarly discourse in German studies.

We envision three topical sub-sections for this special issue:

·       Diachronic explorations of gendered experiences with disability: Feminism and disability across German, Austrian, and Swiss historical contexts 

·       Contributions to theory and methodological approaches: Disability as a critical lens to challenge ideas of the able, androcentric body in research and teaching

·       Aesthetics and representations: Cultural constructions

Possible topics might include: 

• Gendered disability in contemporary German-language media
• Disability in feminist discourse
• The normative role of the female caregiver
• Disability in German fairy tales and folklore
• Intersections with race and class
• Intersections with age/ageism
• Disability and access to work and career
• Normative gender performance expectations and disability
• Disability, feminism, and government policy
• Life writing and disability
• Intersections between disability, gender,and technology
• The ethics and aesthetics of disability narratives
• Ecocritical approaches to disability and gender
• Disability as a methodological approach in feminist German studies
• Disability and sexuality in the Germanophone context
• Experiential accounts of disability in German studies

We invite authors to submit work (academic articles as well as nontraditional/creative formats) on disability and gender understood as issues of intersectionality with the aim of fostering a more inclusive scholarly discourse in German studies.

Please submit your abstract (150 words—250 words), your name and institution, and a short bio (~100 words) to Judith.Bierwolf@ucc.ie and rmgs@ucc.ie by 2nd February 2026. All submissions should be in English.