Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies, 2017
The article examines the cultural effects of the spectrum as an increasingly popular way of class... more The article examines the cultural effects of the spectrum as an increasingly popular way of classifying behavioural, mental, and emotional states. The past decades have witnessed shifts in the conceptualization of psychiatric diagnostic criteria. Disorders that were once understood as singular pathologies are increasingly re-configured as spectral pathological ranges. This rise of spectral thinking is evident in the most recent revisions to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. DSM-5 marks the beginning of psychiatry’s migration away from strict categorical approaches to diagnosis, where disorder is either present or absent, and toward dimensional approaches, where disorder is measured by degree. These shifts have generated debate within the field of psychiatry (and beyond), centering on the apparent disappearance of “normal.” Attending to the DSM-5’s new severity scales, the article argues that conceptions of mental normalcy are not so much disappearing, as they are being reconfigured and put to use in new ways. The proposition is that spectral adjustments to psychiatric diagnostic categories represent a neoliberal deregulation of disorder. That is to say, the blurring of categorical boundaries separating normalcy and disorder is working to stimulate the market, while also grounding the emergence of novel subjectivities and forms of normative surveillance and control.
This paper addresses contemporary neoliberal time and its normative understanding of developmenta... more This paper addresses contemporary neoliberal time and its normative understanding of developmental time. As autism is framed as a growing risk to the 'good life' of neoliberal development, autism advocacy emerges as that which must neutralize this risk by targeting individual bodies and minds to secure 'better' (i.e., more normative) futures for all. I ask: how is the space and pace of advocacy working to constitute the relational subjectivities of both the 'advocate' and the 'advocated for'? I examine and analyze two cultural artifacts: one mundane (a special series Starbucks coffee cup aimed at raising autism awareness) and the other spectacular (the United Nations' World Autism Awareness Day resolution). I read these artifacts as prolific, productive and powerful sites of meaning making that shape collective experiences of the passing of time (i.e., as either too slow or too fast) as well as our understandings of bodies in time (i.e., as being either 'on time' or 'late').
This paper problematizes contemporary cultural understandings of autism.We make use of the develo... more This paper problematizes contemporary cultural understandings of autism.We make use of the developmental psychology concepts of 'Theory of Mind' and 'mindblindness' to uncover the meaning of autism as expressed in these concepts. Our concern is that autism is depicted as a puzzle and that this depiction governs not only the wayWestern culture treats autism but also the way in which it governs everyday interactions with autistic people. Moreover, we show how the concepts of Theory of Mind and mindblindness require autism to be a puzzle in the first place. Rather than treat autism as a puzzle that must be solved, we treat autism as a teacher and thus as having something valuable to contribute toward an understanding of the inherent partiality and uncertainty of human communication and collective life.
In December of 2007, the Globe and Mail, one of Canada's national newspapers, published a series ... more In December of 2007, the Globe and Mail, one of Canada's national newspapers, published a series of articles written by columnist Ian Brown. In the three part-series entitled, "The Boy in the Moon," Brown narrates his life with his cognitively disabled son. This paper explores Brown's articles in relation to Judith Butler's (2004) "Violence, Mourning, Politics," and conducts an analysis of how cognitive disability is being enacted as "not quite a life" (34). This paper demonstrates how Brown's articles tell the story of cognitive disability as a state of brokenness, some-thing that requires fixing. Significantly, when disability defies and/or resists fixing, it is discursively reframed as a tragic loss. By attending to the making of disability in Brown's articles, this paper is more broadly interested in how disabled and nondisabled bodies ('we') are being formed in and through social spaces. "Who counts as human? Whose lives count as lives?" -Judith Butler Precarious Life: The powers of mourning and violence, 20 11/12/13 Disability, Non-disability and the Politics of Mourning: Re-conceiving the 'we' | McGuire | Disability Studies Quarterly dsq-sds.org/article/view/1282/1309 2/16
Autism is widely understood in contemporary times as nothing more than a biomedical disorder in n... more Autism is widely understood in contemporary times as nothing more than a biomedical disorder in need of treatment and/or cure. War on Autism disrupts this singularity by examining autism as a historically specific and power-laden cultural phenomenon that has much to teach about the social organization of a neoliberal western modernity. Bringing together a variety of interpretive theoretical perspectives including critical disability studies, queer and critical race theory, and cultural studies, the book analyzes the social significance and productive effects of contemporary discourses of autism as these are produced and circulated in the field of autism advocacy. Anne McGuire discusses how in the field of autism advocacy, autism often appears as an abbreviation, its multiple meanings distilled to various “red flag” warnings in awareness campaigns, bulleted biomedical ”facts” in information pamphlets, or worrisome statistics in policy reports. She analyzes the relationships between these fragmentary enactments of autism and traces their continuities to reveal an underlying, powerful, and ubiquitous logic of violence that casts autism as a pathological threat that advocacy must work to eliminate. Such logic, McGuire contends, functions to delimit the role of the “good” autism advocate to one who is positioned “against” autism. - See more at: https://www.press.umich.edu/7784427/war_on_autism#sthash.3Va0kRSn.dpuf
Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies, 2017
The article examines the cultural effects of the spectrum as an increasingly popular way of class... more The article examines the cultural effects of the spectrum as an increasingly popular way of classifying behavioural, mental, and emotional states. The past decades have witnessed shifts in the conceptualization of psychiatric diagnostic criteria. Disorders that were once understood as singular pathologies are increasingly re-configured as spectral pathological ranges. This rise of spectral thinking is evident in the most recent revisions to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. DSM-5 marks the beginning of psychiatry’s migration away from strict categorical approaches to diagnosis, where disorder is either present or absent, and toward dimensional approaches, where disorder is measured by degree. These shifts have generated debate within the field of psychiatry (and beyond), centering on the apparent disappearance of “normal.” Attending to the DSM-5’s new severity scales, the article argues that conceptions of mental normalcy are not so much disappearing, as they are being reconfigured and put to use in new ways. The proposition is that spectral adjustments to psychiatric diagnostic categories represent a neoliberal deregulation of disorder. That is to say, the blurring of categorical boundaries separating normalcy and disorder is working to stimulate the market, while also grounding the emergence of novel subjectivities and forms of normative surveillance and control.
This paper addresses contemporary neoliberal time and its normative understanding of developmenta... more This paper addresses contemporary neoliberal time and its normative understanding of developmental time. As autism is framed as a growing risk to the 'good life' of neoliberal development, autism advocacy emerges as that which must neutralize this risk by targeting individual bodies and minds to secure 'better' (i.e., more normative) futures for all. I ask: how is the space and pace of advocacy working to constitute the relational subjectivities of both the 'advocate' and the 'advocated for'? I examine and analyze two cultural artifacts: one mundane (a special series Starbucks coffee cup aimed at raising autism awareness) and the other spectacular (the United Nations' World Autism Awareness Day resolution). I read these artifacts as prolific, productive and powerful sites of meaning making that shape collective experiences of the passing of time (i.e., as either too slow or too fast) as well as our understandings of bodies in time (i.e., as being either 'on time' or 'late').
This paper problematizes contemporary cultural understandings of autism.We make use of the develo... more This paper problematizes contemporary cultural understandings of autism.We make use of the developmental psychology concepts of 'Theory of Mind' and 'mindblindness' to uncover the meaning of autism as expressed in these concepts. Our concern is that autism is depicted as a puzzle and that this depiction governs not only the wayWestern culture treats autism but also the way in which it governs everyday interactions with autistic people. Moreover, we show how the concepts of Theory of Mind and mindblindness require autism to be a puzzle in the first place. Rather than treat autism as a puzzle that must be solved, we treat autism as a teacher and thus as having something valuable to contribute toward an understanding of the inherent partiality and uncertainty of human communication and collective life.
In December of 2007, the Globe and Mail, one of Canada's national newspapers, published a series ... more In December of 2007, the Globe and Mail, one of Canada's national newspapers, published a series of articles written by columnist Ian Brown. In the three part-series entitled, "The Boy in the Moon," Brown narrates his life with his cognitively disabled son. This paper explores Brown's articles in relation to Judith Butler's (2004) "Violence, Mourning, Politics," and conducts an analysis of how cognitive disability is being enacted as "not quite a life" (34). This paper demonstrates how Brown's articles tell the story of cognitive disability as a state of brokenness, some-thing that requires fixing. Significantly, when disability defies and/or resists fixing, it is discursively reframed as a tragic loss. By attending to the making of disability in Brown's articles, this paper is more broadly interested in how disabled and nondisabled bodies ('we') are being formed in and through social spaces. "Who counts as human? Whose lives count as lives?" -Judith Butler Precarious Life: The powers of mourning and violence, 20 11/12/13 Disability, Non-disability and the Politics of Mourning: Re-conceiving the 'we' | McGuire | Disability Studies Quarterly dsq-sds.org/article/view/1282/1309 2/16
Autism is widely understood in contemporary times as nothing more than a biomedical disorder in n... more Autism is widely understood in contemporary times as nothing more than a biomedical disorder in need of treatment and/or cure. War on Autism disrupts this singularity by examining autism as a historically specific and power-laden cultural phenomenon that has much to teach about the social organization of a neoliberal western modernity. Bringing together a variety of interpretive theoretical perspectives including critical disability studies, queer and critical race theory, and cultural studies, the book analyzes the social significance and productive effects of contemporary discourses of autism as these are produced and circulated in the field of autism advocacy. Anne McGuire discusses how in the field of autism advocacy, autism often appears as an abbreviation, its multiple meanings distilled to various “red flag” warnings in awareness campaigns, bulleted biomedical ”facts” in information pamphlets, or worrisome statistics in policy reports. She analyzes the relationships between these fragmentary enactments of autism and traces their continuities to reveal an underlying, powerful, and ubiquitous logic of violence that casts autism as a pathological threat that advocacy must work to eliminate. Such logic, McGuire contends, functions to delimit the role of the “good” autism advocate to one who is positioned “against” autism. - See more at: https://www.press.umich.edu/7784427/war_on_autism#sthash.3Va0kRSn.dpuf
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