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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.
List of contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction. Involution 1
1. Intention 35
2. Intervention 89
3. Invitation 135
4. Invention 175
Epilogue. Indexicality 207
Notes 215
Bibliography 261
Index 289
About the author
M. Remi Yergeau is Assistant Professor of English Language and Literature at the University of Michigan.
Summary
Challenging the academic and cultural stereotypes that do not acknowledge the rhetorical capabilities of autistic people, Melanie Yergeau shows how autistics both embrace and reject the rhetorical, thereby queering the lines of rhetoric, humanity, agency, and the very essence of rhetoric itself.
