What Kind of Island in What Kind of Sea?

by Franz Fühmann, Elizabeth C. Hamilton (Translator)

Overview

The dignity of cognitively disabled people and the ethics of representing their lives are at the heart of an extraordinary yet little-known book first published in the former German Democratic Republic. Was für eine Insel in was für einem Meer, or What Kind of Island in What Kind of Sea (Rostock, Hinstorff, 1986) depicts residents of a church-run institution for people with cognitive disabilities in astonishing black-and-white photographs by Dietmar Riemann and in a probing, poignant essay by esteemed German writer Franz Fühmann. This important text, which moved from a medical model to a historical and cultural view of disability as an aspect of human identity and experience, is translated into English for the first time by Elizabeth Hamilton and includes reflections on the book and its impact. As fuller, global histories of disability are now being written, What Kind of Island in What Kind of Sea opens an essential window onto a formerly shuttered world, demonstrating the power of the arts to hone our capacity to perceive and appreciate human difference.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781643150277
Publisher:	Michigan Publishing Services
Publication date:	04/25/2022
Pages:	218
Product dimensions:	8.50(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

Elizabeth C. Hamilton is Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Oberlin College and Associate Professor of German. Her scholarly and teaching interests center on disability as a lived experience and on cultural representations of disability, Universal Design in pedagogy, accessibility in higher education, and on East German literature and film.

Franz Fühmann (1922-1984) was an East German writer who published poetry, translations, essays, stories, and books for children and adults.

Dietmar Riemann (1950-) is a German photographer and author.

Table of Contents

Member Institution Acknowledgments v

Acknowledgments vii

"Here, then, awe of human dignity": Franz Fühmann and Dietmar Riemann's Photo-Essay Collection, Was für eine Insel in was für einem Meer Elizabeth C. Hamilton 1

"Photographien von geistig Behinderten" by Franz Fuhmann, English translation Elizabeth C. Hamilton 25

Photographs Dietmar Riemann

Die Jüngsten / The Youngest 83

Alltag im Heim / Everyday Life in the Samaritans' Institution 99

Arbeit als Therapie / Work as Therapy 125

Höhepunkte des Jahres / Highlights of the Year 151

Die Alten / The Elderly 179

Tending the Vine: Personal Reflections on Visiting the Samariteranstalten Elizabeth C. Hamilton 193

Notes 199

Bibliography 203