Synopsis
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, psychology and education but extraordinarily there has been no exploration of its power within representative narrative forms. Representing Autism is the first book to tackle this approach. Using contemporary fiction and memoir writing, Hollywood and independent film, contemporary photography, television drama and documentary, print and radio, together with older texts, Stuart Murray sets the contemporary fascination with autism in context. The key contention of the book is that, for all of the coverage of the condition, autism rarely emerges from the various images it produces as a way of being in the world that is understood. Rather it frequently occupies a succession of narrative spaces (especially in the most commercial manifestations) that produce it as a source of fascination and of enigmatic wonder.

Representing Autism analyses and evaluates the place of autism within contemporary society and culture and at the same time examines the ideas of individual and community produced by people with autism themselves, both in print and online, to establish the ideas of autistic presence that emerge from within a space of cognitive exceptionality. 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.

'thought-provoking, deeply empathetic and engaging … I would recommend Murray's book to parents of those on the autism spectrum, educational and clinical practitioners, scientists and academics, film-makers and writers, as well as students and members of the public wanting to know more about autism.’
Emma Williams, Times Higher Education

Representations: Health, Disability, Culture and Society 1

234 x 156mm, 288 pages, paperback

Published June 2008