So, without further adieu, some thoughts on the rhetoric of autism that I think I'm going to blog around on over the next couple weeks/months:
- The complexities and difficulties of representing invisible disabilities, like autism, in our "visual culture"
- The connection b/t autism and the supernatural (i.e., Autism and the God Connection), particularly as it relates to representation in film and television (i.e., The Boy Who Could Fly, Bless the Child). Also, the connection between autism and the supernatural as it relates to pre-20th century "stolen" and feral children. (Nymphs were believed to have stolen healthy babies and replaced them with demon or possessed--autistic--children. Church leaders believed that these demons did not possess a soul and many are believed to have been killed by their parents or abandoned in the wilderness.)
- The differences between (and subsequent representations of) autism as a mental illness (i.e., schizophrenia) and developmental disorders
- Rhetoric of blame in regard to developmental disorders (i.e., mothers, vaccines, mercury, cell phones)
- Autism blogging and youtube broadcasts as rhetorical agency (someone is doing something)
- Autism as a white, educated, affluent Western disorder--disorder of Industrialized societies
- The "suffering" of autism and the connections between autism and pain
- Representations of autism in online blogs--parents blogging about autistic children, autistic adults blogging about themselves--means of advocacy
- Advocacy and awareness of autism through home videos posted on youtube
- Autism and the superhuman (i.e., savant syndrome)
I'm also planning on submitting to SAMLA's panel on Autism Texts (4/15/07), thanks to Allison for the head's up. I'd love to hear any thoughts on which idea might be most appropriate for MLA...
Background noise tonight: Wonderpets Save the Cow... (in case you were curious)
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12 comments:
I was just about to add to your comments about the supernatural and then I got to the last one and there it was. I was thinking about terminology, though, a way of distinguishing between the supernatural you first mention (godlike, spiritual) and the one that you mention last (as in the case of savants, for example). I wonder if you might call that super-natural, or even supranatural (a term Coleridge used and maybe even coined--he made up so many words). Or maybe there's another way of labelling it.
By the way, it's without further ado, not adieu, you lousy speller, you.
Okay, let me try this again...
I am particularly interested in a combination of something you mention (the relationship btwn autism and mental illness) and something Dr T mentions here - labelling. I can't recall whether or not you used the Embodied Rhetorics text in Disability Rhetoric last year or not, but one of teh chapters by Pendergast (or similar?) begins a depper discussion on the language of disbility (though I don;t recall is she, specifically, mentions autism by name).
To me, the issue of langauge and labelling is key to the connection between disability (in general - autism in particular) and rhetorical analysis... after all, the "label" we place on the "problem" (a label that in itself brings up another issue: if we don't refer to autism as "illness" OR "disability" - then what other monikers are acceptable?) is what will, ultimately, determine who in the scientific (re: Medical) world will claim authority for treatment.
In fact, I recall having similar discussions even as an undergrad Psychology major (nearly 20 years ago - ack!). How we discussed (or if we discussed at all) issues of autism (and even schizophrenia to a lesser degree) was largely determined by the philosophical slant my professors (personally) took. This was as true in Anatomy & Physiology oriented courses as it was in Adolescent or Abnormal Psychology (and let's not even start a discussion on that non-PC, dehumanizing course title... though what works better, I, admittedly, have no clue). Autism was batted around between those who claimed it was a mental "illness" (and therefore something more within the realm of psychological studies) and those who felt it was a physical disability" (and so a worry for the mebical -biological- community). Related to this issue of language and authority is also the issue of "curability" (Molly anyone??). MDs want to "cure" or fix teh illness (or temporary malady), while psycologists, conversely, want to "teach" - that is, help the "patient" learn to deal with, understand, or function around his or her "affliction" as part of what they perceive to be "normal" society. Who is right?
I think it's neither, and as you and I talk more and more about autism (and I don't read anything on autism anymore without thinking first of Tobey), I begin to think that perhaps it will be RHETORICIANS - those ensconced in disability studies in particular - who will carry the burden of "labelling." Scholarship of your sort may not simply offer a new way to understand representations of disability in our visual world, but it may be responsible (someday!) for changing the way the entire autistic community is viewed by the world at large AND the medical communities that serve them.
On a sidenote, a Smarthinking colleague (Martha Stoddard Holmes) wrote an interesting section of the same Embodied textbook - her scholarship is more historical than what I think you are going to do here, of course... she looks at the representation of disability in the Victorian Era through personal narrative. Nevertheless, she might be an interesting resource for you at some point though -- and I would be happy to send your info on to her at some point, if you'd like. Maybe she'd even get a kick out of being a small part of this blog...?
Ah-ha! Here's the quote from Embodied Rhetorics that I mentioned (from Catherine Prendergast, by the way):
"...the literature on disability would seem a natural place to turn to find [language with which to understand mental illness], yet it seems that disability studies, with its emphasis on the body and not the mind, creates fissures through which attention the mentally disabled easily falls. One might ask if there are any discourses in which people with severe mental illness might comfortably reside..." (46).
I wonder what answer you'll give to this provocative question when the dissertation process has ended?? Because I don't think we've negotiated a "comfortable" place where autism can reside as yet... of course, sheer ignorance (in the face of a seemingly credible barrage of information - thank you Hollywood) on the "truths" of autism might be a huge part of this inability to (as a society) come to terms with autism's place in disability studies. Too many people simply lack the context to comprehend the totality of autism, and they don't even know it.
We need to figure out a way to "edit" these stinking posts.
It never occured to me that I could DELETE a whole post - so, thinking I was editing my post, I, instead, deleted it entirely (I'm living F/T in "Dissertation LaLa Land" - I mentioned that earlier - right?). I just sighed and retyped.
But now, typing fast (so I could even hope to remember and reclaim my own thoughts), I made a BILLION typographical errors - errors that really ruin my "happy academic place" here in LaLa Land.
This is why I do not like blogging. Even BB is friendlier... (and that is just sad).
I remember not being comfortable on BB at first though too -- so we'll see if I change my tune before this HARD class we created is over.
In case anyone wondered -- my students are doing an in-class essay today, so their frantic (and I do mean FRANTIC) tap-tap-tapping has spurred me to think and type. I'm sure I'll become a big slacker again tomorrow.
This may not be 100% dissertation related (you might like it on a more personal level as well), but I ran across a blog last week that you may want to look into.
Mike Stanton, an educator in the UK, blogs on autism. He is both a teacher of special needs children (I'm not sure the age) and has an adult son diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome. I noticed that this connects to a couple of your ideas so I thought I would pass it along. Hope it helps!
http://mikestanton.wordpress.com/
Dang, I didn't mean to come on and razz anybody about typos. There's no connection between being a good speller and being intelligent. Though I doubt a person who is not intelligent could spell correctly, I've known plenty of people who are really smart and can't spell worth a lick. I have long had a theory that people who are more musical often have trouble with spelling. I'm clearly visual, so I can spell better than most (though not nearly as well as I used to).
I was just teasing Rochelle about her confusion of "ado" with "adieu."
As for typos, I always use the Preview feature on these posts. That doesn't mean I won't ever have a mistake, but it helps.
If it makes you both feel any better, I'm the worst speller in the history of the universe. I even got caught cheating on my third grade spelling test--the word was "special." I wrote it on the bottom of my desk and had to "tie my shoes" during the middle of the exam.
Thank God for spellchecker; I would've never gotten into graduate school without it.
And, thanks for the suggestions from everyone.
I went to the blog, Katt, and it looks pretty interesting. I've bookmarked it with my other "must read blogs."
Donna, you've reminded me that I've got to go back and review my textbooks for disability rhetoric. I completely forgot about that article--I've got to go back and read it. The distinction between physical and mental disabilities raises all sorts of interesting distinctions. To me, it seems like physical disabilities are more "real" because they aren't invisible. But, we (in the general sense) don't necessarily "believe" people when they claim mental illness. For instance, the conflicting interpretations of "mentally insane" in the courts reflects that. How many people claim that postpartum depression doesn't really exist?
Dr. T--I can see the connections between savant and spiritual connections in regard to autism. We can't understand how someone can possibly compute pi to the 21,000 decimal place (the author of _Born on a Blue Day_ discusses his ability to do so). What other explanation can we understand if not that this person is super-suprahuman. Touched by God with divine powers.
Interestingly, I read in a blog someone aruing Batman/Bruce Wayne is autistic.
Remember Billy Golfus's dad having so much trouble understanding why his son couldn't find a job? Billy said, "Dad, I have brain damage." And dad said, "But you can't fall back on that." I think his dad probably could grasp the hemiplegia, but not the brain damage, because he couldn't see it.
Brain damage is starting to really interest me. My friend who was paralyzed this summer (and by the way, this weekend we are planning to drag him out of the nursing home and out for a meal, his first social outing since June)--anyway, he had some brain damage, and the way it seems to manifest is in difficulty coming up with words. One day he was trying to think of what wing he was in at Parkland, and he kept coming up with "the eucalyptic wing"--which sounds a lot nicer than where he was, which was the spinal cord injury wing.
I noticed that the journalist who was so seriously wounded in Iraq and has been making the rounds on the talk show circuit is exhibiting some of the same things. He couldn't think of the word "surgery" the other day, but his wife helps him with the words.
I need to add conceptions of "personhood" as it is directly reflected by/exhibited through language. No communication, no consciousness, no personhood.
I suppose I would need to research the various clinical distinctions made to define consciousness. Bio-medical definitions? I would venture to say that consciousness (i.e., personhood) is closely related to, connected to, or contingent on communication.
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