Critical Neurodiversity Studies: Divergent Textualities in Literature and Culture

(Hardback)

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Bringing together cutting-edge research on neurodiversity as an evolving theme in Disability Studies and the wider Medical Humanities, this book introduces a new, more inclusive field of scholarship for literary and cultural studies that explores the potential of neurodiverse scholarly practice in literary and cultural studies. Bringing together a range of scholars and writers the majority of whom identify as neurodivergent this book critiques the assumption that writers, readers and editors share a uniform sensory, linguistic and social response to cultural production. Drawing on critical disability studies to question the idea that there is a 'normal human subject, it moves beyond representations of neurodivergent characters and questions common depictions of neurodivergence as special talents or social deficits. Chapters move beyond a singular focus on the representation of neurodivergence and explore what can be known or understood only when we engage in close and attentive reading to atypical deployments of language, form and genre. In essence, asking what it means in practice to perform a neurodivergent reading of literary texts.

Author Bio

Jenny Bergenmare is a Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. Louise Creechan is a Lecturer in Literary Medical Humanities at Durham University, UK. Anna Stenning is a Wellcome Research Fellow at the University of Leeds, UK.