Laura Seymour – författare

Early Modern Neurodivergence is about how what we now call neurodivergence and neurodiversity were understood, described, and lived in early modern Europe. Centring neurodivergent people's experiences throughout—both those in the early modern era and the present day—this book provides neurodivergent readings of literary and legal texts from Britain, Spain, and Poland, in connection with other cultures, countries, and languages. Early Modern Neurodivergence uplifts neurodivergent ways of reading and engaging with literature, from stimming with texts to relying on the neurodivergent experiences in our own lives to understand what these texts might mean. Drawing on archival materials, theoretical work in neurodiversity studies, and qualitative research with neurodivergent people, this book offers a framework for defining and working with early modern neurodivergence. The volume deals with the figure of Echo in British and Latin literature, the question of neurodivergent representation in Lope's La Dama Boba, Cervantes's Don Quijote as a stimmy text, the sonnet sequence (and particularly works by Jan Kochanowski and Anne Lok) as a neurodivergent literary form, and the ways in which neurodivergent knowledges and experiences can illuminate legal documents relating to the laird Hugh Blair of Borgue. The Coda offers a challenge to the idea that early modern neurodiversity studies is a new or just-developing field, and looks forward to a diverse array of new works in the field in the future.An open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence.

Shakespeare and Neurodiversity argues that the Shakespeare classroom should be a place where neurodivergent learners flourish. This Element addresses four key areas: questions of reasonable adjustments, the pace of learning, the issue of diagnosis, and Shakespearean neurodivergent futures in education. Throughout, the Element provides activities and theoretical explanations to enable students and educators to understand how these four areas of Shakespeare education have often been underpinned by ableism, but can now become sources of neurodivergent flourishing.

Examines the interrelation of the bodily and the textual in four early modern literary examples of bad behaviorBroadens the scope of current understandings of early modern literature by identifying and analysing the significance of genre to representations of resistance to behavioural normsBrings together a variety of texts that are not usually considered side by side (Elizabethan and Jacobean devil plays, non-conformist life writing, picaresque prose), using this carefully-chosen mix of texts to explore social norms as a generic concernProvides a definitive study of texts lacking a substantial critical apparatus, like Grim the Collier of CroydonComparatively analyses early modern Anglophone texts alongside Spanish picaresque prose thus opening out new avenues in comparative literary studiesRefusing to Behave in Early Modern Literature explores texts shaped by collisions between the idiosyncrasies of individual bodyminds and the values of small communities such as religion, sect, social milieu, congregation and family. The book encompasses the period from the late sixteenth century to the early eighteenth century, examining early modern shrew and devil plays, picaresque and rogue literature, and Quaker life-writing. Refusing to Behave examines the ways in which Thomas Dekker, Thomas Ellwood, Mateo Alem n and his translator James Mabbe, and the anonymous author of Grim the Collier of Croydon use textual tricks to provoke bodily responses in readers, and also draw on readers' bodily experiences to enrich their textual descriptions. This study broadens the scope of current understandings of early modern literature by identifying and analysing the significance of genre to representations of resistance to behavioural norms.

Refusing to Behave in Early Modern Literature explores texts shaped by collisions between the idiosyncrasies of individual bodyminds and the values of small communities such as religion, sect, social milieu, congregation and family. The book encompasses the period from the late sixteenth century to the early eighteenth century, examining early modern shrew and devil plays, picaresque and rogue literature, and Quaker life-writing. Refusing to Behave examines the ways in which Thomas Dekker, Thomas Ellwood, Mateo Aleman and his translator James Mabbe, and the anonymous author of Grim the Collier of Croydon use textual tricks to provoke bodily responses in readers, and also draw on readers' bodily experiences to enrich their textual descriptions. This study broadens the scope of current understandings of early modern literature by identifying and analysing the significance of genre to representations of resistance to behavioural norms.

Roland Barthes’s 1967 essay, "The Death of the Author," argues against the traditional practice of incorporating the intentions and biographical context of an author into textual interpretation because of the resultant limitations imposed on a text. Hailing "the birth of the reader," Barthes posits a new abstract notion of the reader as the conceptual space containing all the text’s possible meanings. The essay has become one of the most cited works in literary criticism and is a key text for any reader approaching reader response theory.