Critical autobiography: a new genre?

Summa-Knoop, Laura Di

doi:10.1080/20004214.2017.1358047

Cited by 5 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 20 publications

(14 reference statements)

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“…Whilst there is considerable value in this rapidly developing corpus of autistic life writing (contributing to what is sometimes referred to as “autie-ethnography”; Yergeau, 2013 ), there are limitations that need to be highlighted. There is a long tradition of literary criticism foregrounding narrative methods in autobiography and memoir, questioning the truth status of the genre and conceptualising critical autobiography (Di Summa-Knoop, 2017 ). Like all life writing, autiebiography (Van Goidsenhoven, 2017 ) offers subjective perspectives that are necessarily selective in several ways.…”

Section: Contemporary Autistic Accountsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Autistic phenomenology: past, present, and potential future

Green,

Shaughnessy

2023

Front. Psychol.

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We are now at a transition point in autism conceptualisation, science, and clinical practise, where phenomenology could play a key role. This paper takes a broad view of the history of phenomenological perspectives on the autism concept and how this has evolved over time, including contemporaneous theory and methods. Early inquiry from a clinical perspective within the tradition of classical continental phenomenology, linked closely to the consideration of schizophrenia, is contrasted with emerging observations of child development and a period in the second half of the twentieth century of scientific inquiry into a behavioural autistic phenotype where there was little or no phenomenological aspect; a phenotype that has determined the recent scientific and clinical conceptualisation of autism within current nosology. We then mark a more recent reawakening of interdisciplinary interest in subjective experience and phenomenological inquiry, which itself coincides with the increasing prominence and salience of the neurodiversity movement, autistic advocacy, and critical autism studies. We review this emerging phenomenological work alongside a contemporaneous clinical phenomenology perspective and representations of autistic experience from within the extensive literature (including life writing) from autistic people themselves; all perspectives that we argue need now be brought into juxtaposition and dialogue as the field moves forward. We argue from this for a future which could build on such accounts at a greater scale, working toward a more co-constructed, systematic, representative, and empirical autistic phenomenology, which would include citizen and participatory science approaches. Success in this would not only mean that autistic experience and subjectivity would be re-integrated back into a shared understanding of the autism concept, but we also argue that there could be the eventual goal of an enhanced descriptive nosology, in which key subjective and phenomenological experiences, discriminating for autism, could be identified alongside current behavioural and developmental descriptors. Such progress could have major benefits, including increased mutual empathy and common language between professionals and the autistic community, the provision of crucial new foci for research through aspects of autistic experience previously neglected, and potential new supportive innovations for healthcare and education. We outline a programme and methodological considerations to this end.

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Section: Contemporary Autistic Accountsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Autistic phenomenology: past, present, and potential future

Green,

Shaughnessy

2023

Front. Psychol.

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“…3Memoir is a remarkably flexible genre. Historically, its writers have embraced literary, theological and philosophical canons (recognizing that these are not discreet), and the works themselves are built around identity narratives that inevitably evoke for readers, the slippery business of truth and reliability, authenticity, memory, and creativity (Summa-Knoop, 2017: 1–2). Anthropological memoirs include recognizable forms; in particular, the illness narrative, fieldwork memoirs, travel memoirs, and career memoirs.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Making sense: Reflections on an event-based memoir in an existential mode

Robertson

2021

Multimodality & Society

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I began this contemplation of skull and mind after a concussion in 2017 meant that I had to stop reading and engaging in the variety of daily, cognitive activities that comprise academic work. Making Sense documents the subjective sensorium of this injury through a multimedia memoir and autoethnographic analysis that is attuned to ‘existential modalities’. I contemplate an emerging, perceptual repertoire alongside other knowledge practices that recognize the more surreal dimensions of a life-interrupted. Materiality and colour and painting (and text) are considered as evocative modes for apprehending embodied experience and textures of memory and imagination. As an experiment with methodologies of perception, Making Sense includes an abridged, event-based memoir (in stone, text and paintings). An animated pptx version is linked.

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“…Criticisms exist for the use of memoirs to inform research and policy. One prominent criticism being that a memoir is the perspective of only one person and, thus, the experiences are not generalizable to larger groups (Di Summa-Knoop, 2017). This criticism stems from Western research perspectives, which have marginalized and perpetuated racist stereotypes of Indigenous communities in the past (Macfarlane & Ruffo, 2016;Saini, 2012;Simonds & Christopher, 2013).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%