Whitney Hardin is a scholar of game studies, comic studies, new media, and civic literacies.Julia E. Kiernan is assistant professor of communication at Lawrence Technological University.

Depictions of mental deficiency have been ubiquitous fuel for pop culture narratives. Of course, the limited and negative characterization of mental difference has never quite worked. Stereotypical stories are consumed by neurodiverse humans. These stories also operate within metaphorical frames and genres that are shaped through their reception and repetition. This excellent collection reveals how such stories gain new meaning -- because we refuse to believe or invest in a monolithic version of mental and cognitive difference – because we refuse to easily associate this difference with evil, sadness, violence, and loss. As the collected chapters show, when we remake, reboot, and adapt texts, despite their outdated representations of mental disability, they often come out both more accessible and broader in meaning, both more representative and more open to the audience. This collection captures the energy of this critical remaking, centering the agency of disabled people.

• IntroductionWhitney Hardin & Julia E. KiernanPart I: Imagining and Broadening Narratives of DisabilityChapter One: The Prosthetic Self: Drag and Disability in the Figure of RuPaulJohn W. GulledgeChapter Two: Adapting Medical Reports into Narrative Film: Autism, Eugenics, and Savagery in Truffaut’s L’Enfant sauvage (The Wild Child, 1970)Joy C. SchaeferChapter Three: Remaking the Image of Autism: Why and How Comics Should Reboot Autistic RepresentationRobert RozemaChapter Four: An Atypical Interaction with a Typical World: Viewing Coming-of-Age through the Lens of Disability Studies in Robia Rashid’s AtypicalAnamika PurohitChapter Five: “But can we agree that he’s unwell?”: Narrative Resistance in Legion’s Approach to Mental DisabilityJulia E. KiernanChapter Six: Diagnosing Mental and Moral Disability in Post 9/11 Popular American Film NarrativeCarol DonelanPart II: Renegotiating and Resisting Narratives of DisabilityChapter Seven: “A document in madness”? Disability Erasure in C

Whitney Hardin is a scholar of game studies, comic studies, new media, and civic literacies.Julia E. Kiernan is assistant professor of communication at Lawrence Technological University.

Depictions of mental deficiency have been ubiquitous fuel for pop culture narratives. Of course, the limited and negative characterization of mental difference has never quite worked. Stereotypical stories are consumed by neurodiverse humans. These stories also operate within metaphorical frames and genres that are shaped through their reception and repetition. This excellent collection reveals how such stories gain new meaning -- because we refuse to believe or invest in a monolithic version of mental and cognitive difference – because we refuse to easily associate this difference with evil, sadness, violence, and loss. As the collected chapters show, when we remake, reboot, and adapt texts, despite their outdated representations of mental disability, they often come out both more accessible and broader in meaning, both more representative and more open to the audience. This collection captures the energy of this critical remaking, centering the agency of disabled people.

• IntroductionWhitney Hardin & Julia E. KiernanPart I: Imagining and Broadening Narratives of DisabilityChapter One: The Prosthetic Self: Drag and Disability in the Figure of RuPaulJohn W. GulledgeChapter Two: Adapting Medical Reports into Narrative Film: Autism, Eugenics, and Savagery in Truffaut’s L’Enfant sauvage (The Wild Child, 1970)Joy C. SchaeferChapter Three: Remaking the Image of Autism: Why and How Comics Should Reboot Autistic RepresentationRobert RozemaChapter Four: An Atypical Interaction with a Typical World: Viewing Coming-of-Age through the Lens of Disability Studies in Robia Rashid’s AtypicalAnamika PurohitChapter Five: “But can we agree that he’s unwell?”: Narrative Resistance in Legion’s Approach to Mental DisabilityJulia E. KiernanChapter Six: Diagnosing Mental and Moral Disability in Post 9/11 Popular American Film NarrativeCarol DonelanPart II: Renegotiating and Resisting Narratives of DisabilityChapter Seven: “A document in madness”? Disability Erasure in C

Whitney Hardin is a scholar of game studies, comic studies, new media, and civic literacies.Julia E. Kiernan is assistant professor of communication at Lawrence Technological University.

Depictions of mental deficiency have been ubiquitous fuel for pop culture narratives. Of course, the limited and negative characterization of mental difference has never quite worked. Stereotypical stories are consumed by neurodiverse humans. These stories also operate within metaphorical frames and genres that are shaped through their reception and repetition. This excellent collection reveals how such stories gain new meaning -- because we refuse to believe or invest in a monolithic version of mental and cognitive difference – because we refuse to easily associate this difference with evil, sadness, violence, and loss. As the collected chapters show, when we remake, reboot, and adapt texts, despite their outdated representations of mental disability, they often come out both more accessible and broader in meaning, both more representative and more open to the audience. This collection captures the energy of this critical remaking, centering the agency of disabled people.

• IntroductionWhitney Hardin & Julia E. KiernanPart I: Imagining and Broadening Narratives of DisabilityChapter One: The Prosthetic Self: Drag and Disability in the Figure of RuPaulJohn W. GulledgeChapter Two: Adapting Medical Reports into Narrative Film: Autism, Eugenics, and Savagery in Truffaut’s L’Enfant sauvage (The Wild Child, 1970)Joy C. SchaeferChapter Three: Remaking the Image of Autism: Why and How Comics Should Reboot Autistic RepresentationRobert RozemaChapter Four: An Atypical Interaction with a Typical World: Viewing Coming-of-Age through the Lens of Disability Studies in Robia Rashid’s AtypicalAnamika PurohitChapter Five: “But can we agree that he’s unwell?”: Narrative Resistance in Legion’s Approach to Mental DisabilityJulia E. KiernanChapter Six: Diagnosing Mental and Moral Disability in Post 9/11 Popular American Film NarrativeCarol DonelanPart II: Renegotiating and Resisting Narratives of DisabilityChapter Seven: “A document in madness”? Disability Erasure in C