13 research outputs found
Neurodiversity, Networks, and Narratives: Exploring Intimacy and Expressive Freedom in the Time of Covidâ19
The Narratives of Neurodiversity Network (NNN) is a neurodivergent academic, creative, and educator collective that came together with allies during the Covidâ19 pandemic to create a network centred around emerging narratives about neurodiversity and exploring new ways of learning and socialising. The network focuses on exploring the roles of written, spoken, and visual narratives across cultural locations about neuroâatypical experiences in generating improved agency and selfâadvocacy for those who have been subject to pathologization through neuroânormativity and intersecting oppression. During the last year, widening access to digital platforms has provided a space to explore these issues outside of traditional academic spaces. We run a monthly âSalon,â our mixedâmedia âreading, listening, and watchingâ group, in an effort to find positive representation within contemporary culture. Discussions have moved beyond mimesis and into a consideration of how narrative and storyworlds can question the supposed naturalness of certain ways of being in and perceiving the world. This article interrogates the networkâs core principles of nonhierarchical coâproduction, including the roles of creativity, community, identity, and emancipatory research which were animated by the new technoâsocial context. We consider the cultural lives of neurodiversity in the West and beyond, including ethical and aesthetic dimensions. We share a faith in the power of storytelling to inform new social identities for neurodivergent people and to inform scientific understandings of atypical cognition. In exploring this, we speak through a porous firstâperson plural narrator, to unsettle the idea that there is a hegemonic âweâ speaking on behalf of all neurodivergent people
Unwriting Victorian illiteracy
This thesis demonstrates that the representations of illiteracy in Victorian fiction often called into question the absolutism of and motivations behind the contemporary drive for universal literacy. In the texts I examine here, low-level literacy functions as a means of resistance against oppressive class and educational hierarchies. The original contribution to knowledge that this thesis makes is a reconfiguration of the supposed primacy of literacy in nineteenth-century fictional representations concerned with educational progress. It demonstrates that across the nineteenth century, there was a hitherto-underdiscussed ambivalence in fiction regarding the dominance of textuality, with writers often criticising textsâ domineering authority while seeking to hold open spaces for other, increasingly subaltern forms of knowledge-making and understanding.
In response to Samuel Johnsonâs 1755 definition of illiteracy â âunlettered; untaught; unlearned; unenlightened by scienceâ â and the (mis)perception of illiteracy as inevitably being a deficit, the thesis is structured around four forms of illiterate representation that utilise the âun-â prefix. The chapters are arranged chronologically to give a sense of the general progression of illiterate representation in relation to significant shifts in educational policy, public attitudes, and increasing literacy rates. The first chapter â The Unlearned ÂŹâ identifies a contemporary alternative to the semi-literate criminal trope in 1830s fiction: the semi-literate footman. I argue that while footmen figures are often morally ambivalent, their low-level literacy functions as a powerful vehicle for exposing upper-class hypocrisies. The footmen in early Victorian texts gain both their critical lens and their individual agency through their atypical literacy. However, these traits are pre-emptively quashed by the exploitative teaching practices seen in mid-century fiction. The second chapter â The Untaught â focuses on the numerous scenes of literacy training that appeared in fiction published in the middle decades of the nineteenth century. This chapter demonstrates how the power dynamics of the reading lesson are used to control the intellectual and sexual development of learners. It pays particular attention to gendered dynamics, discussing the patronisation of male learners and the subjugation of female learners within the commonly employed ambivalences of the pedagogical marriage plot. The thesis then shifts focus from the actions of predatory pedagogues to the disciplinary power of text. In chapter three â The Underestimated â I introduce the figure of the âidiot readerâ, an intellectually disabled figure found in several sensation novels whose atypical literacy renders them attuned to the numerous dangers posed by the written word. The final chapter â The Unorthodox â focuses on depiction of alternative forms of reading and orthography that challenge the universalist discourses of the education reform agenda in the decades after the 1870 Education Act. These readings of illiterate agency found in nineteenth-century fiction culminate in the conclusion of my thesis â The Unwriting. This final analysis is delivered unscripted via voice recording and reflects upon the primacy of written forms of communication over alternative means of intellectual expression within the contemporary academy
Killing the Letter: Alternate Literacies and Orthographic Distortions in Jude the Obscure
When Jude the Obscure (1895) was published as a single volume novel, Hardy added the biblical epithet âthe letter killethâ to the title page. In Jude and across his works, Hardy revels in moments in which literacy seems to undo itself. This article traces Hardyâs attempts to âkill the letterâ through non-standard engagements with orthography as part of a larger proto-modernist approach that destabilizes the fixity of meaning. There are several concerns linked to the growing primacy of literacy that appear time and again in Hardyâs novels, specifically: the alternative literacies of the lesser educated, semiotic multiplicities, and the transformative potential of spelling mistakes. I suggest that Hardyâs treatment of these themes demonstrates a sustained effort to âkill the letterâ and challenge the assumption of progress made by the various educational reforms that had taken place in the latter half of the nineteenth century
Neurodiversity, Networks, and Narratives: Exploring Intimacy and Expressive Freedom in the Time of Covidâ19
The Narratives of Neurodiversity Network (NNN) is a neurodivergent academic, creative, and educator collective that came together with allies during the Covidâ19 pandemic to create a network centred around emerging narratives about neuro-diversity and exploring new ways of learning and socialising. The network focuses on exploring the roles of written, spoken, and visual narratives across cultural locations about neuroâatypical experiences in generating improved agency and selfâadvocacy for those who have been subject to pathologization through neuroânormativity and intersecting oppression. During the last year, widening access to digital platforms has provided a space to explore these issues outside of traditional academic spaces. We run a monthly âSalon,â our mixedâmedia âreading, listening, and watchingâ group, in an effort to find positive representation within contemporary culture. Discussions have moved beyond mimesis and into a consideration of how narrative and storyworlds can question the supposed naturalness of certain ways of being in and perceiving the world. This article interrogates the networkâs core principles of nonhierarchical coâproduction, including the roles of creativity, community, identity, and emancipatory research which were animated by the new technoâsocial context. We consider the cultural lives of neurodiversity in the West and beyond, including ethical and aesthetic dimensions. We share a faith in the power of storytelling to inform new social identities for neurodivergent people and to inform scientific understandings of atypical cognition. In exploring this, we speak through a porous firstâperson plural narrator, to unsettle the idea that there is a hegemonic âweâ speaking on behalf of all neurodivergent people