Singer's Midgets in Karlín's Theatre Varieté. Strategies of Representing Physical Difference in 1920s Prague
2011
Abstract
The essay focuses on the appaerance of the famous "Lilliputian" group called Singer's Midgets in 1920's Prague. Using the concepts from contemporary disability studies discourse, my aim was to describe the rhetorical construction of "the other" body, understood as an intersection of different discourses and ideologies and to describe it's relation to the collective identities of the time.
Comparing this case with similar appearences abroad, I've tried to show the specificity of the Czech context, which was an intensive use of humour and the self-critique of the hegemonial burgeois identity by the means of humour.