Lecture | Ralph Savarese | Poetic Potential in Autism: Neurodiversity's Boon
Critiquing a number of stubborn clichés about autism and embracing the concept of neurodiversity, Savarese presents the work of Tito Mukhopadhyay, a man whom the medical community would describe as “severely autistic” and whom he has been mentoring for the past five years. (Feb. 20, 2014) The author of Reasonable People, which Newsweek called “a real life love story and an urgent manifesto for the rights of people with neurological disabilities” and the co-editor of “Autism and the Concept of Neurodiversity,” a special issue of Disability Studies Quarterly, Ralph James Savarese can be seen in the award-winning documentaryLoving Lampposts: Living Autistic and in a forthcoming documentary about his son, DJ, Oberlin College’s first nonspeaking student with autism. He spent the academic year 2012/2013 as a neurohumanities fellow at Duke University’s Institute for Brain Sciences.