THE VERNACULARISATION OF MODERN NEUROSCIENCES: A CASE STUDY OF NEURO-AUTOBIOGRAPHIES IN THE AGE OF COMPLEXITY ANDREA CLAUDIA VALENTE A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY GRADUATE PROGRAM IN HUMANITIES YORK UNIVERSITY TORONTO, ONTARIO MAY 2020 © Andrea C. Valente, 2020 ABSTRACT This dissertation explores the vernacularisation of modern neurosciences which refers to the everyday communication and materialization of neuroscientific concepts for and by a lay population in order to reframe society’s understanding of ‘brain disorders’, ‘mental illness’, and ultimately the ‘self’. Taking this social phenomenon into account, this dissertation examines how neuroscientific knowledge may get ‘entangled’, ‘enfolded’, ‘unfolded’ as in the case study of self-narratives written by professional women with neurological conditions which are coined here as ‘neuro-autobiographies’. The interaction between the neuroscientific knowledge and the autobiographer’s lived experience with a brain condition contributes to a complex process of life-writing and rhetorical expressions, which creates an ecological relation with various agents, contexts, and networks that emerge organically out of noise, disturbances, interruptions, and fluctuations; ultimately, such interactions can challenge the order-disorder of the discourses. In this view, the neuro-autobiographies transcend the concept of a literary genre, once they are considered part of a communication system that is dynamic, non-linear, and self-organized. The theoretical framework developed in this dissertation is interdisciplinary, grounded in concepts from applied linguistics, complexity thought (e.g. complex adaptive systems), women’s autobiography studies, and pedagogical studies. This dissertation applies a qualitative methodology based on discourse analysis (e.g. rhetorical and stylistic devices) to examine five self-narratives in order to identify how underlying neuroscientific concepts are entangled with personal experiences and knowledge through the use of a vernacular language. The five autobiographers are: Temple Grandin, Siri Hustvedt, Jill Bolte Taylor, Barbara Arrowsmith, and Francesca Martinez. ii The interdisciplinary approach allows the neuro-autobiographies to be studied as open systems in interaction with the vernacularisation of the neurosciences in distinct contexts such as the educational one. With this in mind, this study holds an applied component to collaborate with higher education by proposing a vernacular neurosciences course that focuses on the neuro- autobiographies examined in this dissertation. The proposed course syllabus aims to develop a vernacular neurosciences literacy through a transdisciplinary approach that envisions to bridge the divide between the humanities and the sciences in academic settings. The teaching and learning of threshold concepts based on the neuro-autobiographies aim to foster students’ critical thinking by questioning how the vernacularisation of the neurosciences can reframe our understanding of the human brain in relation to the ‘self’, and to ‘women’ in particular, who live with certain neurological conditions. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The culmination of this dissertation derives from my long-term ambition to pursue a doctoral degree brought from afar to Canada. Authoring this dissertation felt like drafting part of my life story in which fluctuations, oscillations and bifurcations have marked the attempts to complete it. Certainly, this project could not have been materialized if it were not for the various individuals that directly and indirectly have supported and influenced my thoughts, feelings, and behaviour at scholarly and personal levels. I would like to express here with much honor and sincerity, my wholeheartedly gratitude to my supervisor and supervisory committee for their assistance, encouragement, and comments to my dissertation: to my supervisor Professor Steve Bailey who kindly supported me when I had to make some risky maneuvers and detours along my dissertation; to Professor Celia Popovic for her pedagogical and academic insights and mentorship; and to Professor Logan Donaldson for crossing wide disciplinary borders in order to move this dissertation forward. Likewise, I would like to greatly thank the external examiners, Prof. Sarah Bigi and Prof. Emilia Nielsen, for their time and expertise by accepting the task of reading my dissertation, and for contributing intellectually to it. I would also like to acknowledge Professor Victor Shea, the Graduate Program Director, for his academic support during the final stages of my dissertation as well as the administrative assistants for kindly dealing with the logistics. In a retrospective style, I would like to acknowledge the following individuals who have influenced my academic and professional development during my PhD project: I would like to thank the Graduate Program in Humanities where my dissertation is housed, and Professor Markus Reisenleitner for welcoming me into the program in 2010 as an MA iv graduate. I would also like to thank my course professors for their teachings which somehow shaped my intellectual articulations, in particular, Professor Marlene Kadar and Professor Susan Ingram for their insights into women’s autobiography studies. During my PhD in the Humanities Program, I met many colleagues with whom I exchanged lively scholarly casual conversations; among them, I would like to thank Mr. Chris Satoor for his philosophical insights and to Mr. Shlomo Gleibman for his ongoing academic support. I am very grateful for the funds the Graduate Program in Humanities and the Canadian Center for German and European Studies granted me along my doctoral studies which helped me enhance my academic curriculum with conference presentations and summer courses in the UK and Germany. Among them, I would like to thank Professor Alberto Gil for the opportunity to audit his classes in rhetoric, and to Professor Christof Vatter and Professor Hans-Jürgen Lüsenbrik for having me as a visitor junior scholar to their applied linguistic graduate program while spending a summer term at Saarbrucken University in 2014. During my PhD candidacy, I had the honor to have the Teaching Commons former Director, Professor Celia Popovic, as my mentor while taking the Senior Teaching Assistant Program and later on while pursuing further educational development opportunities. Moreover, I would like to thank Dr. Mandy Frake-Mistak and Dr. Natasha May for the many opportunities to collaborate in educational development workshops delivered for TAs and faculty while I held a Teaching Commons Tutor position. I would also like to thank all the TAs I had coached, in particular Ms. Mariela Giuliano, for they opened my eyes to the academic diversities across York Departments. I would like to thank Professor Antonella Valeo for acknowledging my ESL credentials and my teaching experience and skills while offered me a position as a course director at the Department of Languages, Literatures, Linguistics at York, where I have the pleasure to work v with a friendly Faculty and Staff and instruct international students. This teaching job opportunity has strongly reinforced my intentions to complete this dissertation with more determination Beyond this decade of scholarly retrospective, I would like to show my respectably appreciation to Professor Rafael J. Cataño who has accompanied me along my professional trajectory and given me the strength and support whenever I need. I have been immensely and infinitely grateful for our ongoing collegial and intellectual exchanges since we met in my first IADA conference in Goteborg 2001. I would like to thank the following scholars in the field of the humanities for their friendly academic exchanges and professional conversations which have kept me motivated at the last stages of my dissertation: Dr. Cornelia Ilie, Dr. Ivanka Mavrodieva, Dr. Miguel Neneve, Dr. M. Raffaella D. Valle. Likewise, I extend my warmest gratitude to Mr. Kivanç Babacan whose scholarly expertise in physics has illuminated my initial steps into complexity studies, and with whom I share ongoing stimulating conversations about the universe. Last, but not least, I would like to thank my family for offering me the resources to alleviate the load of my PhD project whenever it felt too heavy for me to carry on my own. I could not end this acknowledgement without mentioning my son, A.V.S., who has been incredibly patient, understanding, and supportive to my PhD project and who has taught me more about his mind/brain than I ever thought. Thus, I dedicate this dissertation to him. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT………………………………………………………………………………………ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS….…………………………………………………………………...iv TABLE OF CONTENTS………………………………………………………………………..vii TABLE OF FIGURES…………….………………………………………………………………x INTRODUCTION: Brain as Muse ................................................................................................. 1 CHAPTER ONE: The Humanities and the Neurosciences .......................................................... 16 1.1 Autoethnography: CAN-ACN Conference 2016 ........................................................... 16 1.2 The Two Cultures ........................................................................................................... 21 1.3 Can We Bridge the Gap? ................................................................................................ 32 1.4 Modern Neurosciences