Representing Autism Culture, Narrative, Fascination

"Representing Autism explores the ways in which autism is depicted in a number of different cultural narratives, from literary fiction, photography and commercial cinema, to the coverage of the vaccination scares and the productions of the multiple online communities in which the condition is discussed. The first book to examine such representations in detail, it looks at contemporary texts and narratives - from Rain Man to The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time - while also analysing stories that date from before the condition was identified medically in the 1940s in order to chart autism as a condition that has always been part of the human record. Stuart Murray investigates the ideas of individual and community produced by people with autism, both in print and online, to establish a concept of autistic presence that emerges from within a space of cognitive exceptionality. At heart, this book asserts the need to understand and respect the difference that is inherent in autism because of the ways in which it extends our experience of what it means to be human."--BOOK JACKET.

Stuart Murray is senior lecturer in English at the University of Leeds. Since the diagnosis of his youngest son with autism in 2002 he has focused increasingly on disability studies.