Nina Schmidt – författare

Takes the recent wave of German autobiographical writing on illness and disability seriously as literature, demonstrating the value of a literary disability studies approach.In the German-speaking world there has been a new wave - intensifying since 2007 - of autobiographically inspired writing on illness and disability, death and dying. Nina Schmidt's book takes this writing seriously as literature,examining how the authors of such personal narratives come to write of their experiences between the poles of cliché and exceptionality. Identifying shortcomings in the approaches taken thus far to such texts, she makes suggestions as to how to better read their narratives from the stance of literary scholarship, then demonstrates the value of a literary disability studies approach to such writing with close readings of Charlotte Roche's Schoßgebete(2011), Kathrin Schmidt's Du stirbst nicht (2009), Verena Stefan's Fremdschläfer (2007), and - in the final, comparative chapter - Christoph Schlingensief's So schön wie hier kanns im Himmel gar nicht sein! Tagebuch einer Krebserkrankung (2009) and Wolfgang Herrndorf's blog-cum-book Arbeit und Struktur (2010-13). Schmidt shows that authors dealing with illness and disability do so with an awareness of their precarious subject position in the public eye, a position they negotiate creatively. Writing the liminal experience of serious illness along the borders of genre, moving between fictional and autobiographical modes, they carve out spaces from which they speak up and share their personal stories in the realm of literature, to political ends.Nina Schmidt is a postdoctoral researcher in the Friedrich Schlegel Graduate School of Literary Studies at the Freie Universität Berlin.

Takes the recent wave of German autobiographical writing on illness and disability seriously as literature, demonstrating the value of a literary disability studies approach.In the German-speaking world there has been a new wave - intensifying since 2007 - of autobiographically inspired writing on illness and disability, death and dying. Nina Schmidt's book takes this writing seriously as literature,examining how the authors of such personal narratives come to write of their experiences between the poles of cliché and exceptionality. Identifying shortcomings in the approaches taken thus far to such texts, she makes suggestions as to how to better read their narratives from the stance of literary scholarship, then demonstrates the value of a literary disability studies approach to such writing with close readings of Charlotte Roche's Schoßgebete(2011), Kathrin Schmidt's Du stirbst nicht (2009), Verena Stefan's Fremdschläfer (2007), and - in the final, comparative chapter - Christoph Schlingensief's So schön wie hier kanns im Himmel gar nicht sein! Tagebuch einer Krebserkrankung (2009) and Wolfgang Herrndorf's blog-cum-book Arbeit und Struktur (2010-13). Schmidt shows that authors dealing with illness and disability do so with an awareness of their precarious subject position in the public eye, a position they negotiate creatively. Writing the liminal experience of serious illness along the borders of genre, moving between fictional and autobiographical modes, they carve out spaces from which they speak up and share their personal stories in the realm of literature, to political ends.Nina Schmidt is a postdoctoral researcher in the Friedrich Schlegel Graduate School of Literary Studies at the Freie Universität Berlin.

Die 34-jährige Antonia wohnt seit ein paar Monaten mit ihrem Freund Lukas zusammen. Eigentlich läuft alles gut: Lukas kann zum Beispiel unfallfrei eine Waschmaschine bedienen und weiß, dass es sich bei einem »o.b.« nicht immer um den Oberbürgermeister handelt. Aber nach und nach zieht ein neuer Mitbewohner ein: Kollege Alltag, der sich in den sowieso schon beengten Wohnverhältnissen der beiden ziemlich breit macht. Statt Liebesbriefen gibt es Einkaufslisten und statt wilder Sexorgien nette Fernsehabende. Überhaupt, irgendwie ist das Leben zum Stillstand gekommen, und Antonia gerät in eine Art »Drittel-Life-Krise«. Ausgerechnet da taucht die Exfreundin von Lukas plötzlich auf und wirbelt die Beziehung der beiden kräftig durcheinander.»Das Buch ist wie ein ›Zoch‹ durch die Gemeinde Köln, bei dem man mit seiner besten Freundin und viel Kölsch alle Absurditäten des Liebeslebens diskutiert. Ein großer Spaß, aber ohne Kater.«Annette Frier