Of the Dog in the Night Time Crossover Text Whitbread Award Winner 2003 Rather unsentimental portrayal compared to typical condescending sympathetic seriousness Really Unreliable Narrator inscribed as normal and rational his exceptionality is the normative basis for the narrative Kevin ID: 197153
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Slide1
The Curious Incident
Of the Dog in the Night TimeSlide2
Crossover Text
Whitbread Award Winner (2003)
Rather unsentimental portrayal (compared to typical condescending sympathetic seriousness)
Really Unreliable Narrator (inscribed as normal and rational); his exceptionality is the normative basis for the narrative (Kevin as secondary voice and
CIotDitN
-T is not about overcoming autism, whereas Kevin and Max “overcome” [for a time at least] their disabilities)
Christopher’s obsessive need for sameness reflects early 20
th
C research into autism (outdated/not universally true)
This uniformity-or “logic”-is perhaps more a media conceptionSlide3
“Autism and the Contemporary Sentimental” by Stuart Murray
So little is known concretely about autism, it is easy to project the real onto it, for it to become stylized
We understand autism more through performance than through science
Neurologist
Majia
Holmer
Nadesan
suggests that autism is possibly “not a thing, but is a nominal category useful for grouping heterogeneous people all sharing communication practices deviating significantly from the expectations of normalcy”Slide4
“Autistic bandwagon”
the ultimate enigma: they are what we say they are
They are both unreliable and reliable
They are different
They are validSlide5
The hidden nature of this cognitive impairment makes is “pretty”
The figure of the autistic individual has become a narrative marker of fascination for much cultural production across different mediaSlide6
Idiot Savant (at most 10% of Autistic people, according to Murray) is a fascinating concept (super
crip
)Slide7
Autism still connects with the origins of Disability Studies, the interest in exceptionality. Autism typically includes intelligence, and this satisfies the continuing anxiousness that finds comfort in disabled but smart.Slide8
Murray argues that autism in literature asks us to reflect on what it means to be human
“The traditional view of humanity is that it is based on a sense of empathy, morality, free will, and dignity. It is a fixed view, and this fixedness jars somewhat with the flexibility, or instability, of the human body [in literature of disability]” (“‘Is He Still Human? Are You?’” by Elaine
Ostry
)Slide9
Autism is a contemporary manifestation of such paradoxes based on parallels with technology, computing, an unarticulated sense of the potentially bewildering range of multiplicities of everyday lifeSlide10
…autistic characters in film enact policies of display that are central to the visual apprehension of disability not only in narrative but also in the wider cultural sphere. Rosemarie Garland-Thompson’s work on the modes of representation belonging to American freak shows in the [19
th
] and [20
th
] centuries…outlines a set of processes in which ‘staring at disability choreographs a visual relation between a spectator and a spectacle,’ and it is precisely this relationship constructed by the staring gaze that places autism on display for a majority audience… Slide11
A good story, but still a story…
Disability narratives as popular “fact” sourcesSlide12
Metaphysical mystery
Classic
vs
Hardboiled
vs
Metaphysical
Curious Incident…
uses the mystery narrative as a meditation on the act of reading itself. Mystery moves from solving a crime to the philosophical pursuit of truth. In the postmodern form, the detective‘s pursuit of truth dismantles itself.