In so doing, they demonstrate how an autistic rhetoric requires the reconceptualization of rhetoric's very essence. Contending that autism represents a queer way of being that simultaneously embraces and rejects the rhetorical, Yergeau shows how autistic people queer the lines of rhetoric, humanity, and agency. In many ways it is like other academic books, as Yergeau notes in a rueful footnote: ‘written for an academic audience necessary in some ways, but quite exclusionary in most ways. Using storying as their method, they present an alternative view of autistic rhetoricity by foregrounding the cunning rhetorical abilities of autistics and by framing autism as a narrative condition wherein autistics are the best-equipped people to define their experience. Authoring Autism is a revolutionary book, a neuroqueer revelation. Melanie Yergeau, Authoring Autism: On Rhetoric and Neurological Queerness. My book, Authoring Autism: On Rhetoric and Neurological Queerness (Duke UP), is a winner of the 2017 Modern Language Association First Book Prize, the 2019 CCCC Lavender Rhetorics Book Award for Excellence in Queer Scholarship, and the 2019 Rhetoric Society of America Book Award. They also critique early intensive behavioral interventions-which have much in common with gay conversion therapy-and questions the ableist privileging of intentionality and diplomacy in rhetorical traditions. Edith Sheffer, Aspergers Children: The Origins of Autism in Nazi Vienna. Using a queer theory framework, Yergeau notes the stereotypes that deny autistic people their humanity and the chance to define themselves while also challenging cognitive studies scholarship and its reification of the neurological passivity of autistics. Remi Yergeau defines neurodivergence as an identity-neuroqueerness-rather than an impairment.

Authoring Autism by Melanie Yergeau