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Podcast: New Books in Disability Studies
Episode: Julia Miele Rodas, “Autistic Disturbances: Theorizing Autism Poetics from the DSM to Robinson Crusoe” (U Michigan Press, 2018)
Description: Ever since the first clinical account of autism was published by Dr. Leo Kanner in 1943, Western culture has tended to mythologise the disorder as impenetrable, non-verbal and characterised by silence. As such, in both medical literature and popular culture, autistic individuals are depicted as incomprehensible and Other, problems to be rectified or puzzles to be solved. In contrast to this view of autism as an inscrutable enigma, Autistic Disturbances: Theorizing Autism Poetics from the DSM to Robinson Crusoe (University of Michigan Press, 2018) by Julia Miele Rodas explores the expressive, creative potential of the autist by opening up a host o...