Autism and Representation: New Book
January 14, 2008 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
Charlie pulled two books out of the book shelf. Saying “Blue ocean!” he pointed to a patch of blue on the cover of The Littlest Angel. Saying “green bed!” he pointed to a pink cloud that, I suppose, could be considered to have sort of a chaise lounge shape. I pointed to each letter of “angel” and he read them out: “It says ‘angel’” I said. “A,” said Charlie; I was pointing, I realized, at the “a.” I ran my finger under the entire word: “Angel!” The other book was an old Barney book about “what will you do when you grow up?”. I pointed to the Barney logo at the top (the purple dinosaur’s name in a purple oval with a green oval behind) and asked “What does it say?” “B,” said Charlie. He was smiling and admiring that blue ocean. I repeated my question: “Green!” said Charlie; sure, enough, that was what my finger was pointing at. “It says ‘Barney,’” I said; Charlie kept smiling. “Barney BJ Baby Bop!”
Charlie can read—several nouns on flashcards, the songs in his piano book, but not yet random words we point to in a book. I hope he’ll be able to read some of a book someday, or as much as he needs to for whatever job he might have. I don’t mean to underestimate his abilities, but I also want to describe him as honestly as I might and to provide a truthful representation: As he has gotten older, Charlie learns more, speaks more, understands more, but it is also the case that he is going to need some help and support (Jim’s and mine) throughout his entire life.
How Jim and I represent Charlie—-how we talk about him; what weaknesses, what strength, what stories revealing his personality—can make a huge difference in how people think about and respond to and interact with Charlie, who can talk but not too much, and not enough to explain that his stomach hurts, or how he feels after taking a medication, or why he wants to go “this way.” Words matter, Steve, who has an autistic son, wrote: Yes, they do, and when you are trying to represent your child, to the Child Study Team or to the world or to a random stranger, how people understand and interpret your words matters a whole lot.
Autism and Representation is the title of a new book just published at the end of 2007 by Routledge Press and edited by Mark Osteen, a Professsor of English and Director of Film Studies at Loyola College in Maryland and the father of an autistic teenager. The book is the first scholarly book on autism in the humanities and contributors include scholars from the academic fields of English, disability studies, cultural history, rhetoric, classics, film studies, neuroscience, communication, and psychology and autistic adults. This book investigates
the diverse ways that autism has been represented in novels, poems, autobiographies, films, and clinical discourses, and to explore the connections and demarcations between autistic and “neurotypical” creativity. Using an empathetic scholarship that unites professional rigor with experiential knowledge derived from the contributors’ lives with or as autistic people, the essays address such questions as: In what novel forms does autistic creativity appear, and what unusual strengths does it possess? How do autistic representations–whether by or about autistic people–revise conventional ideas of cognition, creativity, language, (dis)ability and sociability?
The first chapter is by my husband, James T. Fisher: “No Search, No Subject? Autism and the American Conversion Narrative.” Jim examines a once-famous and now forgotten (but still available on Amazon.com) book, Dibs In Search of Self, by Virginia Axline, who “worked in a Child Guidance Center at an undisclosed … location” near to Manhattan. Axline writes about how she used play therapy to treat Dibs, a “semi-mute, withdrawn and tormented child attending a fancy Manhattan private school”; Jim explains how Axline depicts herself as a “visionary therapist who rescued children from toxic parents and the hostile culture threatening sensitive young people in post-war America” (p. 53). Other essays in Autism and Representation are about Bruno Bettelheim and the “rhetoric of scientific authority”; the imagination; what the autistic brain tells us about the process of narrative; writing the autism memoir; films about autism; and Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time; Osteen includes a personal essay, “Urinetown: A Chronicle of the Potty Wars.”
My own essay is about “Fractioned Idiom: Metonymy and the Language of Autism”: I write about how I have learned to apply literary concepts to understand Charlie’s language and non-verbal communication. Metonymy is a figure of speech in which one thing is used to stand for another associated entity: Charlie looking at the cover of The Littlest Angel and calling the patch of blue “ocean” is an example of metonymy. The blue on the book’s cover is meant to be Heaven where the Littlest Angel resides, but that broad swath of blue means one thing to Charlie: Ocean.
Because ocean is heaven to Charlie!
This looks like one of the most interesting books I’ve seen in quite a while. I’m going to ask the libraries here to order it, since it’s a bit out of my price range (which I know is not your choice, Kristina, just a fact of academic publishing).
This book sounds fascinating. Thanks for sharing.
kristina, this looks like a fascinating and much-needed book. congratulations to both you and Jim for your valuable contributions. i look forward to reading it!
I know the cost is rather high—-I’m going to write about some of the essays gradually or otherwise highlight parts. Please let me know what you think!
Oooooh… this sounds extremely cool. I’ll be getting it ASAP. Thank you both for your contributions, and it all sounds great to read.
Cliff
Oh man, Dibs. I have that book (actually I stole it from my parents when I moved house
) and have read it several times. When I was little I thought it was a pretty miraculous story but I also never quite understood how everything that doctor did made the boy ‘all better’. To me it seemed like he just grew up, with some much needed explanations of how people and the world work to assist him.
I bet that if I’d read it again now, it would disgust me in many ways.
He never asked me to contribute though!
That’s academics all over, a self perpetuating elite.
If you don’t know the funny handshake you are resigned to peering in through the windows, while they all roll up there trouser legs and talk funny.
I was pissed off at the time when this new form of colonialism started taking root, wherein a new group of academics joined the scientific fraternity in visiting the autistic zoo and throwing peanuts.
So we need to start planning a second collection……..
Congratulations Kristina! Richard
“How Jim and I represent Charlie—-how we talk about him; what weaknesses, what strength, what stories revealing his personality—can make a huge difference in how people think about and respond to and interact with Charlie…”
I’ll bet it makes a big difference to Charlie, too.
I really am enjoying this conversation pertaining to how people represent individuals with autism who may have difficulty fully representing themselves.
I agree. It is almost as if there is some type of “packaging” involved in the presentation. And, this has the potential (sometimes within minutes) to make or break whether someone is willing to work with my son with autism or not.
Fascinating.
Many thanks to everyone for their comments on this thread.
And…congrats to you and Jim, Kristina. Count me in for the “second collection!”
Well you always have been an excellent ‘translator.’
Best wishes
I’d be interested in reading Jim’s essay. I borrowed the ‘Dibs’ book from the library a few years ago and thought it was awful. There were some nice ideas of listening to the child and respecting him. It is written in a very engaging way and Dibs comes across as a delightful, mixed-up little autistic boy. But the whole idea that he was damaged by his terrible, controlling mum and some horrible repressive regime, which the author magically managed to put right in a few short sessions was irritating to me.
I look forward to seeing a copy of this book.
A book called “Representing Autism” by Stuart Murray is to be published later this year (Liverpool University Press). It seems to explore some similar territory.
The comment about academics colonizing the autistic landscape is great. But so too have purveyors of popular culture (fiction, movies), probably with greater effect. I’ve been reading Badmington’s book “Alien Chic” where he discusses the affectionate appropriation of the alien by both academic and popular culture over the last few decades. What is represented as a positive embracing of the “other” ends up reinforcing very traditional boundaries and distinctions (for this he draws from Tom Wolfe’s idea of “Radical Chic” – which Wolfe.)
So “autism chic” maybe?
jbk
Yep they are all in on the act like bees to a honeypot, this sudden interest is to my mind a manifestation of the very Alien Chic they are talking about, cashing in on it and robbing us of a little more authenticity all the while.
It is an epidemic, an infection, an affectation, it is everywhere I just saw today on the list of research in progress seminars given at a University near me the one with the clock tower, that there is to be a seminar on autism and representation,.
That’s it, I am going to heckle, even if the presenter is my supervisor
Keep asking questions—-
Dr. Murray has an essay in the book on Hollywood films and autism; am more than looking forward to his own book when it is published.
“Fractioned Idiom: Metonymy and the Language of Autism”??
I understand four, maybe five words in that title, and three of them are “and,” “the”, and “of”.
And those are the most important ones—-the rest is 1990s “lit theory-speak.” I would have done some things differently in the essay had I written it now, after learning a lot more.
the ratiometric of ametanoiasis.
The unchanging floater at the top of the pail.
The metonymic of which begins with an S…
which axes of interpretation are we floating around here—–
Another book to put on my list to get sometime in near future.