In constant encounter with one’s environment: Presenting counter-metaphors in the study of the discourse of autism and negotiations of space in literature and visual culture
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2015-08-31
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en
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This thesis is concerned with the discourse of autism and negotiations of space in literary and visual culture. Here, 'autism' is not a mental disorder that can be read in textual and visual vocabulary, but is a discourse that is constructed within the literary and cinematic means that a cultural object offers. The thesis explores the occurrence of pathologized language in several case studies that cover film, documentaries, memoirs, and YouTube videos. Autism is considered as a concept that one ‘does’ in literary and visual culture through speech act and that can be studied with the help of semiotics. It also introduces the notion of ‘atopos’ as a counter-metaphor, parallel to the Old Greek word ‘autos’ on which the term ‘autism’ is based. The counter-metaphor helps to formulate a thorough reading of negotiations of space by autistic characters as phenomenological subjects and opens up opportunities for! future r esearch and activism.
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Faculteit der Letteren