Draft:Authoring Autism

Authoring Autism: On Rhetoric and Neurological Queerness is a book by American academic M. Remi Yergeau, published by Duke University Press in December 2017.

Summary
From the publisher:"In Authoring Autism [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 question the ableist privileging of intentionality and diplomacy in rhetorical traditions. Using storying as their method, they present an alternate 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."

Reception
Bradley Lewis, writing for the Journal of Medical Humanities ...

Sam Kizer, writing for Feminist Formations...

Rhetoric Review ...

Further, the book has been reviewed in several academic and public venues, including American Literature, Disability & Society, Feminist Formations, GLQ, the Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies, the Los Angeles Review of Books, philoSOPHIA, Rhetoric Society Quarterly, and Public Books.