Neurodiversity in Contemporary Memoirs

By Amrutha Sivadasan

Neurodiversity in Contemporary Memoirs investigates neurodevelopmental differences, namely autism, ADHD, and dyslexia, through an interdisciplinary lens that blends together intersectionality, phenomenology, and legal studies.

The book explores five 21st Century memoirs as works of thought as well as records of experience. They are:

- Laura Kate Dale's Uncomfortable Labels

- Anand Prahlad's The Secret Life of a Black Aspie

- Philip Schultz's My Dyslexia

- Tom Nardone's Chasing Kites

- and K. Vaishali's Homeless: Growing Up Lesbian and Dyslexic in India.

Drawing on disability studies, intersectionality, and Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology, the book asks how autism, dyslexia, and ADHD are lived through the body, and how race, gender, sexuality, and caste shape that living. It argues that neurodivergent people do not simply inhabit the world differently but "inhabit-the-world" in ways that clinical and legal frameworks struggle to register. The final chapters carry this argument into law. They read the memoirs as legal narratives and extend Martha Nussbaum's Capabilities Approach with an embodied dimension, toward a fuller understanding of constitutional equality.

It will be of interest to all scholars and students of Disability Studies, Gender Studies, Literary Studies, and Cultural Studies as well as researchers in Critical Autism Studies, Queer Theory, and Narrative Theory.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1041236867
• ISBN13: 9781041236863
• Release Date: March 2027
• Publisher: Routledge
• Length: 142 Pages