Elizabeth J Donaldson – författare

Reimagines neurodiversity through intersections of race, disability, and social justiceNeurodiversity has progressed from niche activism to a household term; our culture is now saturated with social media ads promising to "train" ADHD brains and media tropes like the quirky savant. But amidst this barrage of content urging self-optimization against a neurotypical template, Neurofutures pauses to ask: what comes next? Editors Diana R. Paulin, M. Remi Yergeau, Ralph James Savarese, and Elizabeth J. Donaldson gather a diverse array of scholars and creatives to think through "crip time" – sideways, chronic, manic, and executive dysfunction time – to reimagine the future of cognitive difference.Moving beyond a simplistic celebration of diversity, the collection interrogates the intersections of race, disability, and social justice. Contributors offer "mad provocations" that span from Black neurodivergence and Afrofuturism to neuroqueer paradigms and animal liberation. Through analyses of cultural texts – ranging from the folklore of "Little Eight John" to the speculative worlds of Octavia Butler and Shirley Jackson – the essays deconstruct the violence of neurotypical norms while advocating for the rights of neurodivergent people to full lives and care.Neurofutures refuses the linear march of progress, instead delving into the complex, often hidden realities of lived experience to map a world that welcomes divergence, dissent, and deep compassion.

Essays on neurodiversity in life and literatureRooted in disability activism and social justice discourse, Neurofutures defines, contextualizes, and reframes neurodiversity in its broadest sense—as the infinite variation of human minds. The essays highlight the voices of individuals with experiences of autism, anxiety, bipolar disorder, sleep-wake differences, obsessive-compulsive disorder, psychosis, and other forms of neurodivergence—experiences that may exist alongside other contexts like race, class, gender, and sexuality. Drawing on insights from literary texts and lived experiences, contributors acknowledge the pains and complexities of cognitive difference while evincing creative, defiant resilience and envisioning futures in which neurodivergence is valued, ableism is opposed, and intersectional justice is possible.This volume contains discussion of the following authors and works: Hamja Ahsan, Shy Radicals: The Antisystemic Politics of the Militant Introvert Jesse Ball, Census Octavia E. Butler, Fledgling Arthur C. Clarke, Childhood's End Mark Eati and Max Eati, The Divine Maze Hannah Emerson, The Kissing of Kissing C. S. Friedman, This Alien Shore Dianne Goddard and Peyton Goddard, I Am Intelligent Temple Grandin Thomas Hoccleve, "My Compleinte" Shirley Jackson, We Have Always Lived in the Castle N. K. Jemisin, Broken Earth trilogy Mira T. Lee, Everything Here Is Beautiful "Little Eight John" Toni Morrison, Beloved Dawn Prince-Hughes, Songs of the Gorilla Nation: My Journey through Autism Jasbir Puar, The Right to Maim: Debility, Capacity, Disability Daniel Paul Schreber, Memoirs of My Nervous Illness Rivers Solomon, An Unkindness of Ghosts Sunaura Taylor, Beasts of Burden: Animal and Disability Liberation Esmé Weijun Wang, The Collected Schizophrenias Adam Wolfond, The Wanting Way Richard Wright, Native Son.

Literatures of Madness: Disability Studies and Mental Health brings together scholars working in disability studies, mad studies, feminist theory, Indigenous studies, postcolonial theory, Jewish literature, queer studies, American studies, trauma studies, and comics to create an intersectional community of scholarship in literary disability studies of mental health. The collection contains essays on canonical authors and lesser known and sometimes forgotten writers, including Sylvia Plath, Louisa May Alcott, Hannah Weiner, Mary Jane Ward, Michelle Cliff, Lee Maracle, Joanne Greenberg, Ann Bannon, Jerry Pinto, Persimmon Blackbridge, and others. The volume addresses the under-representation of madness and psychiatric disability in the field of disability studies, which traditionally focuses on physical disability, and explores the controversies and the common ground among disability studies, anti-psychiatric discourses, mad studies, graphic medicine, and health/medical humanities.