Poza metaforą – autyzm jako impas hermeneutyczny w powieści postkolonialnej

A lot of postcolonial novels feature characters with disordered communication, unable to express their will, existing outside of language. These most often unnamed traces of autism and/or intellectual disability become in fictional narrative an element disturbing the expected outcome of postcolonial vindications, out of which the most important is regaining by a marginalized character the sense of subjectivity, realized as a possibility to tell one’s own story. Basing on Ato Quayson’s concept of “aesthetic nervousness”, the article traces how literary and cultural representations of disability introduce into a text affective-cognitive mechanisms which reveal, as Ato Quayson says, “heremeneutic impasse” caused by a confrontation of the norm with disability. This blocked path of text interpretation poses the radical example of untranslatability which will not be abated or compensated by the effort to substitute lack represented by the autistic subject (lack of speech, communication, subjectivity – in general – lack of participation in the universe of interlocution, as Seyla Benhabib calls it). Hermeneutic impasse is, then, inscribed in the very narrative structure featuring an autistic character. On the basis of J. M. Coetzee’s novels, the article analyses this impasse as resistance that untranslatability poses against the attempts to understand, that is, represent, such a subject. These attempts, ethical as to their purpose, end up, however, in containment.

LatinX and the neurologization of self

This paper explores the question of “LatinX” through debates in affective and critical neuroscience regarding the “neurologization of self” that many theorists claim we are experiencing today. This exploration takes Oliver Sacks’ case study “The Autist’s Artist” as its centerpiece and traces how the figure of “José” is narrativized as an autistic subject. The paper asks how we might understand “José” as a “LatinX” subject.

Autism, Expert Discourses, and Subjectification: A Critical Examination of Applied Behavioural Therapies

Applied behavioural therapies are widely adopted interventions that have become the standard of healthcare and expert knowledge for autistic people in Canada. These therapies are methods of individualized behavioural modification whereby skills are taught, and socially “undesirable” or “inappropriate” behaviour is regulated according to expert claims that focus on correction, imitation, repetition, reinforcements, and environmental modification. Despite their prevalence, these therapies are highly controversial methods within autism communities, with mostly non-autistic parents and clinicians as their main proponents, and autistic self-activists as their critics. The ethnographic research presented will examine the culture, training, and knowledge practices of behavioural therapy providers in Ontario, to study disciplinary techniques that are used to create expert subjects. In order to operate as a technology for producing optimal results in the autistic subject, working as a behavioural therapist involves multiple techniques such as completing intensive exercises consisting of audible and textual surveillance, recorded sessions, and intra-therapeutic replicability. These techniques and exercises often work to discipline expressions of care in accordance with a “psychocentric” framework for understanding autism and supporting autistic people.