Autism and Representation (Routledge Research in Cultural and Media Studies) - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0415956447 ISBN 13: 9780415956444

Publisher: Routledge, 2007

Synopsis

Autism, a neuro-developmental disability, has received wide but often sensationalistic treatment in the popular media. A great deal of clinical and medical research has been devoted to autism, but the traditional humanities disciplines and the new field of Disability Studies have yet to explore it. This volume, the first scholarly book on autism in the humanities, brings scholars from several disciplines together with adults on the autism spectrum to investigate the diverse ways that autism has been represented in novels, poems, autobiographies, films, and clinical discourses, and to explore the connections and demarcations between autistic and "neurotypical" creativity. Using an empathetic scholarship that unites professional rigor with experiential knowledge derived from the contributors’ lives with or as autistic people, the essays address such questions as: In what novel forms does autistic creativity appear, and what unusual strengths does it possess? How do autistic representations--whether by or about autistic people--revise conventional ideas of cognition, creativity, language, (dis)ability and sociability? This timely and important collection breaks new ground in literary and film criticism, aesthetics, psychology, and Disability Studies.

About this title

About the Author

Mark Osteen is Professor of English and Director of Film Studies at Loyola College in Maryland.

Edition details

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0415956447
• ISBN 13: 9780415956444
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 322
• Editor: Osteen Mark