Representing Autism: Culture, Narrative, Fascination (Liverpool Studies in Health, Disability, Culture & Society, 1)

Representations: Health, Disability, Culture and Society

by Stuart Murray

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.

Genres: Autistic Spectrum Disorder, Nonfiction, Disability Studies

288 pages, Paperback

First published May 30, 2008

Reviews

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm not going to lie. The meeting of neurology and sociology is not an easy, breezy read by any means. As with most difficult books, one's brain quickly adapts. But, I just don't see many people making that kind of effort. It's a shame, because Stuart Murray has a lot of important things to say about autism, its controversies, and its place within our culture. Fuck Jenny McCarthy and her narcissistic, pseudo-scientific ramblings. Fuck her. The End.

[Nicholas Whyte · Rating 4 out of 5]

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2002893.html[return][return][return]Rather an academic book, but very interesting, looking at the way in which autism is portrayed in culture: Rain Man and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, obviously, but many other examples are invoked including a couple from long before the formal definition of autism (Melville's Bartleby, Dickens's Barnaby Rudge). Murray uses these to warn us to be very wary of stereotypes which are reinforced by these popular narratives - of the autistic person as idiot, or savant (or both), or as family wrecker or tragic victim of a condition that can be "cured". He very much reinforces my own prejudice that autism as an extraordinary window into what it is to be human, and punctures some lazy assumptions along the way.

[Stark]

Reinforced my sense of the importance of better representations of autism.

[Barbara · Rating 5 out of 5]

A rarity among scholarly books—it helped my research but also made me feel that someone understood my personal life, too. Written with empathy and a big heart, as well as insight.