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A review by jackrowland
Authoring Autism: On Rhetoric and Neurological Queerness by Melanie Yergeau
'Under such logics, I have written this book, presumably unaware of my reader and my (non)self. The involuntary actions, thoughts, writings, and behaviours of my autistic body negate my claims to writerhood, rhetorichood, and narrativehood. Instead, this book might be better understood as a cluster of symptoms.
Achoo.
You're welcome.' (pg. 13)
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'Autistic narrative persists. It persists in the face of discourses that would render us arhetorical and tragically inhuman. It persists across genre and mode, much of it ephemeral and embodied in form. Autistic people persist and insist on the narrativity of their tics, their stims, their echoed words and phrases, their relations with objects and environs. We persist in involuting, in politicising the supposedly involuntary. We can't help it after all.' (pg. 23)
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'If autism is a rhetoric unto itself, then we must confront the idea that being autistic confers ways of being, thinking, moving, and making meaning that are not in and of themselves lesser—and may at times be advantageous. This is not to deny the existence of disability, nor is it to suggest that every autistic action is of necessity a symbolic, meaningful, or social move. Rather, it is to suggest that not only is autism a world (à la Sue Rubin), but that autism is a negotiation between rhetorical and arhetorical worlds. And, while at times these worlds may be idiosyncratic or mutually unintelligible, these worlds hold value, meaning, and at times meaninglesness. They are inventional movements, stimpoints that force us to question long-held notions about rhetoric and its privileged topoi.' (pg. 205)
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I filled up about 38 pages of my notebook with quotes while reading this over the course of a few weeks. It's one of the most intellectually stimulating and inspiring books that I've read in a very long time. Yergeau's writing is so rich, so multifaceted, so full of irony and sarcasm. I'm sure I'll be returning to this many times in the future.
Achoo.
You're welcome.' (pg. 13)
–––
'Autistic narrative persists. It persists in the face of discourses that would render us arhetorical and tragically inhuman. It persists across genre and mode, much of it ephemeral and embodied in form. Autistic people persist and insist on the narrativity of their tics, their stims, their echoed words and phrases, their relations with objects and environs. We persist in involuting, in politicising the supposedly involuntary. We can't help it after all.' (pg. 23)
–––
'If autism is a rhetoric unto itself, then we must confront the idea that being autistic confers ways of being, thinking, moving, and making meaning that are not in and of themselves lesser—and may at times be advantageous. This is not to deny the existence of disability, nor is it to suggest that every autistic action is of necessity a symbolic, meaningful, or social move. Rather, it is to suggest that not only is autism a world (à la Sue Rubin), but that autism is a negotiation between rhetorical and arhetorical worlds. And, while at times these worlds may be idiosyncratic or mutually unintelligible, these worlds hold value, meaning, and at times meaninglesness. They are inventional movements, stimpoints that force us to question long-held notions about rhetoric and its privileged topoi.' (pg. 205)
–––
I filled up about 38 pages of my notebook with quotes while reading this over the course of a few weeks. It's one of the most intellectually stimulating and inspiring books that I've read in a very long time. Yergeau's writing is so rich, so multifaceted, so full of irony and sarcasm. I'm sure I'll be returning to this many times in the future.