Overview

In Authoring Autism M. Remi Yergeau defines neurodivergence as an identity-neuroqueerness-rather than an impairment. Using a queer theory framework, Yergeau notes the stereotypes that deny autistic people their humanity and the chance to define themselves while also challenging cognitive studies scholarship and its reification of the neurological passivity of autistics. They also critique early intensive behavioral interventions-which have much in common with gay conversion therapy-and questions the ableist privileging of intentionality and diplomacy in rhetorical traditions. Using storying as their method, they present an alternative view of autistic rhetoricity by foregrounding the cunning rhetorical abilities of autistics and by framing autism as a narrative condition wherein autistics are the best-equipped people to define their experience. Contending that autism represents a queer way of being that simultaneously embraces and rejects the rhetorical, Yergeau shows how autistic people queer the lines of rhetoric, humanity, and agency. In so doing, they demonstrate how an autistic rhetoric requires the reconceptualization of rhetoric's very essence.

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9780822370208

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Reviews

A closely argued, elegantly performed, and even joyfully humorous work of critical emancipatory scholarship. Yergeau carefully intertwines lived experience, autistic memoir, clinical discourse, and humanities theory (particularly rhetorical studies, narrative theory, disability studies, and queer theory) to achieve a highly insightful hybrid discourse. In the process, she breaks down binaries and opens new possibilities of form for scholarly invention and cultural creation. . . . An excellent book and a major contribution. -- Bradley Lewis * Journal of Medical Humanities * Deftly integrates rich theoretical analysis with moments of humor, irony, autoethnography (autie-ethnography), and poetic insight. Authoring Autism will be appropriate for graduate courses in rhetorical theory, whether feminist, queer, disability, posthuman, material, or embodied. It is essential reading for anyone who does rhetorical theory, and it will transform not only how we think about who a rhetor can be, but also what rhetoric should be. -- Jordynn Jack * Rhetoric Review * A new exploration-a work that defines, defies, and defiles the boundaries of rhetorical regimes of neurological oppression. . . . An intervention, a disruption, an eruption. -- Anna Williams * Disability & Society * Authoring Autism provides many thought-provoking insights for disability scholars. . . . Melanie Yergeau's double perspective as a rhetorician and autistic activist that makes Authoring Autism valuable to a larger audience. -- Marion Schmidt * H-Disability *

With philosophical and rhetorical acuity and a large dose of humor, Melanie Yergeau interweaves autism research into other areas of thought, providing new ways of thinking about rhetoric, queerness, and neurology. This is without doubt the most thoroughgoing, rigorous, and creative work on authoring autism I have read. As a reader I have been changed, my attention drawn to the necessity to attend not only to the style, and to writing, but to the terms according to which some of us are given access to these voices we too often take for granted. -- Erin Manning, author of The Minor Gesture With incandescent wit and defiant exuberance, Melanie Yergeau employs her rhetorical scalpel to dismantle the clinical assumptions and cultural stereotypes that have been used to deny, dismiss, and obscure the basic humanity of autistic people for generations. This is not just a landmark book; it's a book that opens up a whole terrain of discourse informed by the insights of queer theory and the disability-rights movement. -- Steve Silberman, author of NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity

Author Information

M. Remi Yergeau is Assistant Professor of English Language and Literature at the University of Michigan.

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