Autistic Activ Neurodiversity

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

In 1993, pioneering autistic activist Jim Sinclair delivered a seminal keynote speech titled “Don’t Mourn For Us” at a conference mostly for parents of autistic children. Widely considered radical for their time, Sinclair’s work developed in concert with other early pioneers of the neurodiversity movement including autistic activists Mel Baggs, Cal Montgomery, and Laura Tisoncik. Organizations such as the Autism Network International, Autistic Self Advocacy Network, and Autistic Women & Nonbinary Network infused ideals from the disability rights movement and early disability studies scholarship into social justice and civil rights focused activism. The neurodiversity movement remains contested space, with definitions of neurodivergence often disputed or misunderstood, and its issues ranging from abuse in residential treatment to autonomy for trans disabled youth, police brutality against neurodivergent people of color, and access to augmentative and alternative communication. This course uses a mixture of primary source material and recent academic texts to trace the origins and development of the neurodiversity movement from its birth in the autistic community to its connections today to the mad pride, broader self-advocacy, and disability rights movements. Readings include early work by activists and cultural workers including Tito Rajarshi Mukhopadhyay, Naoki Higashida, and Bev Harp; and literature and contemporary works by scholars and artists by Anand Prahlad, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, and Remi Yergeau situating neurodivergence, madness, and disability as sociocultural phenomena with profound political implications and possibilities for transforming ableist values and making new worlds.