Representing Autism: Culture, Narrative, Fascination (Representations Health Disability Culture and Society LUP) (Volume 1)

From concerns of an 'autism epidemic' to the MMR vaccine crisis, autism is a source of peculiar fascination in the contemporary media. Discussion of the condition has been largely framed within medicine, psychiatry and education but there has been no exploration of its power within representative narrative forms. Representing Autism is the first book to tackle this approach, using contemporary fiction and memoir writing, film, photography, drama and documentary together with older texts to set the contemporary fascination with autism in context. Representing Autism analyses and evaluates the place of autism within contemporary culture and at the same time examines the ideas of individual and community produced by people with autism themselves to establish the ideas of autistic presence that emerge from within a space of cognitive exceptionality. Central to the book is a sense of the legitimacy of autistic presence as a way by which we might more fully articulate what it means to be human. "Representing Autism explores the ways in which autism is depicted in a number of different cultural narratives, from literary fiction, photography and commercial cinema, to the coverage of the vaccination scares and the productions of the multiple online communities in which the condition is discussed. The first book to examine such representations in detail, it looks at contemporary texts and narratives - from Rain Man to The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time - while also analysing stories that date from before the condition was identified medically in the 1940s in order to chart autism as a condition that has always been part of the human record. Stuart Murray investigates the ideas of individual and community produced by people with autism, both in print and online, to establish a concept of autistic presence that emerges from within a space of cognitive exceptionality. At heart, this book asserts the need to understand and respect the difference that is inherent in autism because of the ways in which it extends our experience of what it means to be human."--Jacket. From concerns of an 'autism epidemic' to the MMR vaccine crisis, autism is a source of peculiar fascination in the contemporary media. Discussion of the condition has been largely framed within medicine, psychiatry and education but there has been no exploration of its power within representative narrative forms. Representing Autism is the first book to tackle this approach, using contemporary fiction and memoir writing, film, photography, drama and documentary together with older texts to set the contemporary fascination with autism in context. Representing Autism analyses and evaluates the place of autism within contemporary culture and at the same time examines the ideas of individual and community produced by people with autism themselves to establish the ideas of autistic presence that emerge from within a space of cognitive exceptionality. Central to the book is a sense of the legitimacy of autistic presence as a way by which we might more fully articulate what it means to be ... Publisher description From concerns about an ‘autism epidemic’ to the MMR vaccine crisis, autism is a source of peculiar fascination in the contemporary media. Author Stuart Murray, himself the parent of an autistic child, contends that for all the coverage, autism rarely emerges from the various images we produce of it as a comprehensible way of being in the world—instead occupying a succession of narrative spaces as a source of fascination and wonder. A refreshing analysis and evaluation of autism within contemporary society and culture, Representing Autism establishes the autistic presence as a way by which we might more fully articulate our understanding of those with the condition, and what it means to be a human. “This is an outstanding volume of empathetic scholarship. . . . Representing Autism is a truly significant piece of cultural criticism about one of the defining conditions of our time.”—Mark Osteen, Loyola College From concerns of an 'autism epidemic' to the MMR vaccine crisis, autism is a source of peculiar fascination in the contemporary media. Discussion of the condition has been largely framed within medicine, psychiatry and education but there has been no exploration of its power within representative narrative forms. This book tackles this approach, using contemporary fiction and memoir writing, film, photography, drama and documentary together with older texts to set the contemporary fascination with autism in context. Central to the book is a sense of the legitimacy of autistic presence as a way by which we might more fully articulate what it means to be human Title Page 3 Contents 7 Figures 9 Permissions 11 Preface: questions 13 Introduction: autism and narrative 19 1 Presences: autistic difference 45 2 Idiots and savants 83 3 Witnessing 122 4 Boys and girls, men and women 157 5 In our time: families and sentiments 186 Conclusion: causing/curing/caring 225 Acknowledgements 232 Select bibliography 235 Index 242