Representing Autism
Culture, Narrative, Fascination
Distributed for Liverpool University Press
288 pages
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6 x 9
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© 2008
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
Contents
List of figures
Permissions
Preface: questions
Introduction: autism and narrative
1 Presences: autistic difference
2 Idiots and savants
3 Witnessing
4 Boys and girls, men and women
5 In our time: families and sentiments
Conclusion: causing/curing/caring
Acknowledgements
Select bibliography
Index
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