Representing Autism: Culture, Narrative, Fascination (review)

Abstract

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. Introduction: autism and narrative -- Presences: autistic difference -- Idiots and savants -- Witnessing -- Boys and girls, men and women -- In our time: families and sentiments -- Conclusion: causing/curing/caring.