[Discussion] CFP: Representing Autism: Writing, Cognition, Disability (6/15/05; SCE, 10/28/05-10/29/05)

[Sule Tarakcioglu]

From: Nicholas Petzak <nicholas.petzak@case.edu>

Subject: CFP: Representing Autism: Writing, Cognition, Disability 
(6/15/05; SCE,
10/28/05-10/29/05)

Representing Autism:  Writing, Cognition, Disability
A conference hosted by the SCE (Society for Critical Exchange)

Disability Studies has largely overlooked the culture and discourses of
cognitive disabilities. Nonetheless, one cognitive disorder has begun to 
receive
a great deal of attention both in the academy and in the popular media: 
Autism.
The success of fictional works (e.g., Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident 
of the
Dog in the Night-Time) and nonfictional books and films by and about
Autism/Asperger's people has fueled this attention.

But though a number of educational, clinical and medical approaches to 
Autism
Spectrum Disorders have emerged and yielded a large body of 
publications, the
fascinating and potentially fruitful relationships between 
Autism/Asperger's and
the humanities have barely been explored. With the recent dramatic rise in
diagnoses of Autism, it is particularly urgent that we undertake such an
exploration. This conference, therefore, aims to bring together scholars 
in the
humanities and the cognitive sciences in order to shed new light on the 
nature
and forms of autistic representation and to trace the lines of 
connection and
demarcation between Autism/Asperger's writing and thinking and that of more
typical human beings.

We seek proposals for papers, panels, and workshops that discuss the
relationships between Autism Spectrum Disorders and representation. How is
Autism/Asperger's depicted in literary works, on film and television, in
clinical discourses, in legal documents and other textual sources? What 
novel
forms does autistic creativity assume? How does autistic 
representation--whether
by or merely about autists--enable us to reconsider "normal" modes of
representation? What do these representations reveal about the nature of 
human
cognition, ability and sociability?

Topics may include (but are not limited to) the following:

Autism as Text
Autistic Cultures
Filming Autism
Writing Autistically
Autism and TV
Autism and Autobiography/biography
Autism and the Law
The Politics of Autism/Asperger's
Autism in History/Histories of Autism
Writing for Autists
Children's Literature and Autism
Hyperlexia
Autism and Alternate Textualities (e.g., graphic arts, assistive 
technologies,
etc.)
Fictions of Autism
Stereotypes and Stereotypies
The Poetry of Autism/Autism as Poetry
Autistic Speech vs. Autistic Writing
Autism and Deconstruction/Deconstructing Autism
Criticism and Autism/Autistic Critics

Please send paper abstracts, panel and workshop proposals, (no full papers
please!) as well as a CV no more
than two pages by June 15, 2005 to Mark Osteen.
mosteen[at]loyola.edu
Department of English
Loyola College in Maryland
4501 N. Charles St.
Baltimore, MD 21210





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