The article proposes the need for a postcolonial neurology, countering recent concerns about the dilution of the term postcolonial when used as metaphor. Adapting George Lako and Mark Johnson's notion of "philosophy in the esh"-the fact...
moreThe article proposes the need for a postcolonial neurology, countering recent concerns about the dilution of the term postcolonial when used as metaphor. Adapting George Lako and Mark Johnson's notion of "philosophy in the esh"-the fact that cognition is embodied, which is to say radically conditioned by physiological systems-it analyzes the non ction work of Tito Mukhopadhyay, an Indian writer in America whom the medical community would describe as "severely" autistic. The article contends that Mukhopadhyay's alternative embodiment gives rise to both a di erent sense of relation and a di erent way with words, each in some respects preferable to the neurotypical standard. Paying attention to Mukhopadhyay's body challengeswith proprioception, sensory processing, over-and under-inclusion of details in his apprehension of the environment, word nding, a drive to associate, a persistent animism, and synesthesiait suggests that he is a cross-cultural, cross-sensorial migrant: a neuro-cosmopolitan armed with metaphor in a world that is often quite hostile to the neurological other. Finally, it situates Mukhopadhyay's writing squarely in the burgeoning neurodiversity movement, which, though recognizing the di culties that autism often presents, nonetheless asks that it be treated and accommodated as di erence.
