Georgia State University ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University English Dissertations Department of English 4-17-2008 Reading Autistic Experience Natalie Collins Trice Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/english_diss Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Trice, Natalie Collins, "Reading Autistic Experience." Dissertation, Georgia State University, 2008. https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/english_diss/27 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of English at ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in English Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. READING AUTISTIC EXPERIENCE by NATALIE COLLINS TRICE Under the Direction of Dr. Margaret Mills Harper ABSTRACT Within the field of Disability Studies, research on cognitive and developmental disabilities is relatively rare in comparison to other types of disabilities. Using Clifford Geertz‘s anthropological approach, ―thick description,‖ autism can be better understood by placing both fiction and non-fiction accounts of the disorder into a larger theoretical context. Applying concepts from existing works in Disability Studies to the major writings of Jacques Derrida, Julia Kristeva, Jacques Lacan, and Donna Haraway also proves to be mutually enlightening. This ethnographic approach within the context of analysis of literary texts provides a model by which