Wanting to do thesis on Autism representation

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I have to do a thesis for uni this year, and I want to do it on Autism representation in fiction.

I'd like to examine why fictional books written by NTs about autistics are taken more seriously then autistic autobiographies. I've yet to hear of an autistic autobiography that has achieved the same cultural and commercial success as The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, although something by Temple Grandin would be the best bet.

Then I'd say what the political ramifications of this is. At the moment I'd say that autism misrepresentation in fiction results in NTs being dangerously misinformed about autism.

I could write a good thesis on this topic. There are good resources on the internet, particularly an issue of Disability Studies dedicated to autism representation. I'd be sufficiently motivated to do the research and everything, and my passion might even compensate for any academic deficits I may have.

My problem is that autism still carries a stigma. If people knew my thesis was about autism, they'd probably end up making informed guesses about my neurology. Uni people still seem to think that the The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time is something other than exploitative drivel written by a disingenuous hack. I'm sure that they have lots of autistic relatives to discuss with me. Basically, I am nervous and fearful about discussing autism with NTs in any setting. I'm also fearful of the employment discrimination could result from mentioning an autism thesis in a resume.

One solution is that I could call up the disability office and ask them to make thesis discussions taboo in tutorials. Or I could lie whenever someone asks me about my thesis, or give a really vague answer like 'disability and the other in the Foccauldian sense.'

I'd want to be able to publish the thesis under a pseudonym, or give no biographical details out when I publish it. My name is common enough to be anonymous. Publishing under a pseudonym feels like a crummy thing to do in academic terms, but I reckon they'd let a dissident Chinese intellectual do it. (I'm not, but I might be able to stretch the same principle to fit me.)

Then I'd only mention my autism thesis to potential employers who seem sympathetic towards autism. We don't seem to get so much anti-Autism hysteria in Australia, although I accept that reading about autism all day on the internet is going to give me a distorted understanding of the American situation. Any potential employer with a teamwork fetish, open plan office, demonstrated support for the Liberal party or doesn't seem like they know about Asperger's will hear nothing of my thesis. Potential employers who'd be allowed to hear about it would include ones that seem autistic themselves or want to specifically recruit autistics.

Alternatively, if my thesis becomes a hit I'd tell anyone about it. Or just list the mark on the resume.

Do my plans seem wise? Has anyone openly published academic work on autism, and suffered discrimination as a result?

Would it help to talk with people who have been there and done that? As part of your thesis prep. you will have to do a literature search, and most post email contact details these days. The other issue to consider is what kind of personal support network you have, outside of university preferably, yet someone who understands academic processes. Who you have as a supervisor is also a very crucial factor - you would need to be thoroughly aware of their views on autism and any general views which are shared by the faculty - sniff these out in advance before deciding if this is the thesis you want to do, and assess how likely they are to give approval to do it. You need to carefully assess these matters as they will make or break your project in the future. Also consult others outside the immediate uni environment like Donna Williams, Tony Attwood or others who know the field and could potentially share guidance and valuable insights.

Don't rush into this. One of the questions you may be challenged with is how you will establish and maintain objectivity. You need to have a clear and precise answer to this well thought out in advance, starting with an acknowledgment of the issues in that, the pitfalls that others have fallen into, and a range of workable solutions (apart from consulting your supervisor - you have to do that anyway). You want to make your thesis proposal a very well argued document and though not all unis require these in writing, it may be an advantage to do one in writing nevertheless. I hope this helps..

"Uni people still seem to think that the The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time is something other than exploitative drivel written by a disingenuous hack." When taken as the exploration of the mind of a character, like it was meant to be, rather than as an accurate description of autism, which was slapped on by the publishers and not the intent of the author, who didn't even research autism while writing the book, it's a fine and well written book. It's only as a depiction of autism where it fails.

I didn't like Curious Incident. Autism representation beside, I found the diagrams gimmicky and the characters unlikeable. I guess I could give Haddon points for trying new things with the diagrams, though.

The problem is that the book's marketing implied that the protagonist was autistic. For many people this book would be their first introduction to autism, and Christopher Boone their go-to stereotype for autism. I particularly dislike that the book as it was included in Secondary School curriculum. Imagine having a teacher explain Autism using Curious Incident and Rainman - not a fun classroom to be in.

Another problem is that it wasn't written by an autistic, yet may be the most famous literary representation of autism. Haddon doesn't know what it's like to autistic, but NTs act like he knows what he's talking about. I would be so happy if a novel about autism and written by an autistic became a bestseller.

There are interesting questions about whether Christopher Boone is meant to be autistic, and whether Haddon or his publisher is culpable for identifying him as autistic. If Haddon's novel was deliberately misrepresented by publishing, where does this place Haddon? I don't think he'd feel great about the situation. Maybe I could write a paragraph or something about ethics in book marketing.

Maybe if I read Curious Incident again, I might not totally despise it. I'd owe it to myself and the author to maintain an open mind. I'm not optimistic, though.

'Disingenuous hack' and 'exploitative drivel' were too unkind and such phrases would have no place in academic writing. They reflected my continual frustration at the NTs who champion Curious Incident as a starting point for autism education.

I'm working on it, but writing is hard.

I think that novel has been written, and it was a bestseller by a best selling novelist - though at the time no-one knew about Aspergers per se, including the novelist. It has been forgotten and most members here are too young to have heard of it.

In the 1940s, Nevil Shute's "No Highway" - a novel about an engineer who tries to persuade others to see that metal fatigue can cause planes to crash - has an unlikely protagonist in Mr Honey, the most acute depiction of a man on the spectrum that I have ever read in fiction. Shute was a very well known novelist who had been an engineer himself, and whether the character of Mr Honey was based on someone he worked with or was a fictionalised version of himself is not known. Read all these years later, it is fascinating to see how Mr Honey is regarded by others in the book, as an oddball with weird ideas (though he is vindicated in the novel) and the theory of metal fatigue was later accepted by aviation engineers.

It would be fascinating to see what Tony Attwood and John Robison would make of this novel.

Problem is that doesn't amount to anything if people don't recognize it as being about autism nowadays. We need a flagship.

Novels like that can be re-released with a new introduction and foreword. Tony Attwood, please get reading and writing!!

What about: Stim and Kaleidoscope?

The author (Kevin Berry) is on the spectrum.

Not sure how many sales are required to become a "best seller", but I bought and read them both.

@OP: It's probably worth considering all your options that you have. Personally, given that I'm rather cynical of the current circumstances, I'd stay with the pseudonym, and perhaps give a very vague idea to what your essay was about on the application (Pop Culture and People With Disabilities?).

Regardless, I wish you the best of luck, and tear NT depictions of autism a new one.

I'll make a note of No Highway In The Sky. I'm familiar with the title from the Lux Radio Theatre page of the Internet Archive. That page is gone now, but you can find the radio adaption of No Highway In The Sky here. So this story comes in radio, movie and book. It could be interesting to compare how autistic traits of the protagonist are played across the different mediums.

Stim and Kaleidoscope look good. I'll have to narrow down which exact novels I'll examine somehow.

I could also do something about novels with undiagnosed characters, that were published before autism became well-known in the Nineties. People say that Mr Darcy from Pride and Prejudice showed autistic traits, and I think that Kafka's books show an autistic paranoia about social interaction. I'd have to go into the motives people have for diagnosing characters with autism.

Getting 'autism experts' like Attwood or Cohen to write novel forewords diagnosing characters as autistic could be good. You'd hand these special editions out to the recently diagnosed or their parents to show them what to expect, and to drive the point home that a diagnosis is not the end of the world. A percentage of the profits of these special editions could go to a relevant charity, and the appropriate iconography could be displayed on the cover.

The sort of Autism bestseller I'm imagining would leave the reader with the impression that autistic people are ideal employees and life partners. The main character would be an Aspergers research pharmacist who is estranged from his anti-vax father. The father grows sick with a preventable but incurable disease. The son tries to develop a cure for the disease but is too distracted by the bright lights and inane social chatter of his workplace to get anything done. He pleads with his boss to for a new workplace, but she ignores him. Later that night she is visited by the ghosts of Einstein, Newton and some other famous dead people speculated to be autistic. They bully her into giving our pharmacist the accommodations he needs, and he develops the cure to his father's disease. Just as he finishes the last experimental trial he receives news that his father has only hours to live. He steals the experimental cure and his boss's car, and the exciting car-trip to his father's hospital involves dunking two representatives of an Autism Speaks expy in green goo, Nickolodean style. When he meets his father he stabs him in the arm with needle and in a few hours his father is up and spreading disinformation about vaccines again. The novel ends with everyone laughing.

I'm not sure how the romance part fits in, but the protagonist would ideally become iconic as a fantasy boyfriend. This will be undermined in the inevitable block-buster film, where he will be portrayed by Nicholas Cage. The book's cover will also be covered in blue puzzle pieces and rainbow infinity ribbons, and be called something like Big Professor.

But in reality, the most I can hope for an autism bestseller is that the Rosie Project isn't awful.

I've got a few book ideas with autistic characters, but only one right now where the main character is explicitly autistic (though I have a film idea as well). Basic idea is it's first person narration of a well adjusted highschool senior girl with aspergers who is instructed by her consoler to mentor a new student to the school, another girl with aspergers, but she's a sophmore with a much different personality and much more problems. Stuff happens. Typical teen/young adult realistic fiction.

The mentor novel sounds like a good idea. It could give readers a credible introduction to autism.