Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2024 Mar;45(1):17-34.
doi: 10.1007/s10912-023-09797-y. Epub 2023 May 3.

Moving Through a Textual Space Autistically

Hanna Bertilsdotter Rosqvist  1 , Anna Nygren  2 , Sarinah O'Donoghue  3
Affiliations

Moving Through a Textual Space Autistically

Hanna Bertilsdotter Rosqvist et al. J Med Humanit. 2024 Mar.

Abstract

This article is an investigation of neurodivergent reading practices. It is a collectively written paper where the focus is as much on an autoethnographic exploration of our autistic readings of autism/autistic fiction as it is on the read texts themselves. The reading experiences described come primarily from Yoon Ha Lee's Dragon Pearl (2019) and Dahlia Donovan's The Grasmere Cottage Mystery (2018), which we experience as opposite each other in how they depict their neurodivergent characters and speak to us as autistic readers. Through the article, we describe a formation of neurodivergent (critical) collective readings of autism/autistic fiction. The article contributes to an academic and activistic discourse around neurodivergent reader responses and power relations between neurodivergent and neurotypical readers and authors.

Keywords: Autism fiction; Autistic fiction; Autoethnography; Collective writing; Neurodivergent reading.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

None

References

    1. American Psychiatric Association . Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. 5. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association; 2013.
    1. Bates Gordon. Autism in fiction and autobiography. Advances in Psychiatric Treatment. 2010;16:47–52. doi: 10.1192/apt.bp.108.005660. - DOI
    1. Bergenmar, Jenny, Hanna Bertilsdotter Rosqvist, and Ann-Sofie Lönngren. 2015. “Autism and the Question of the Human.” Literature and Medicine 33, no. 1 (Spring): 202–221. 10.1353/lm.2015.0009 - PubMed
    1. Botha, Monique. 2021a. “Academic, Activist, or Advocate? Angry, Entangled, and Emerging: A Critical Reflection on Autism Knowledge Production.” Frontiers in Psychology 12:727542. 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.727542 - PMC - PubMed
    1. Botha, Monique. 2021b. “Autistic Agency: Acknowledging Room for Resistance and Dissent in the Face of Trauma and Normativity in Autism Research.” Virtual presentation at the Interdisciplinary Autism Research (IAR) Festival 21, May 2021b. Accessed April 5, 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zu7m-OwjquY

LinkOut - more resources