Autism

"Autism is currently a hot topic, the subject of intense discussion on the web, in the popular press, among medical researchers, and among scholars in the humanities and social sciences. This beautifully written and authoritative book engages most of the hot-button controversies around autism in a level-headed way, carefully distinguishing between the things we know for sure and the much larger collection of things we are still arguing about."-Joseph Straus, Graduate Center, City University of New York "Stuart Murray's Autism offers an effective account of a disorder cast variously as epidemic, postmodern metaphor, media shibboleth, and false positive. Murray demystifies many of the sources of these current beliefs about human variation while helping us to recognize the continuing exclusion faced by many with neurological differences."-David T. Mitchell, School of Education, Temple University "In this lucid, engaging text, Stuart Murray surveys the many different ways that knowledge about autism has been shaped over more than a century. Autism is an invaluable resource for readers seeking a fully integrated conversation-drawing on medical, sociological, historical, filmic, and literary discourses-about disability and/in culture."-Robert McRuer, English, George Washington University "What stands out about Autism is that the historical, personal, political, and scientific can all be found in one place...For those unfamiliar with autism, Murray's book is an excellent introductory primer. I would definitely recommend it to my neighbors and friends as a comprehensive overview of my condition. For those already well-versed in autism discourse, Murray's book is a proposal; a look at autism in all of its guises-as a political hot-button issue, a medical mystery, a popular culture staple, etc.--then merge these perspectives together and reconsider what you thought you knew."-Gyasi Burks-Abbott, Independent Autism Scholar "The power of Autism, as an introductory account, is its attempt to engage seriously with the descriptions and understandings produced about autism from within the life sciences, while maintaining a commitment to the delicate webs of culture and interpretation within which those understandings are invariably entangled."-Des Fitzgerald (2013): Autism, Ignorance, and Love, Science as Culture, DOI:10.1080/09505431.2012.742501