Divergences of Reason: Neurodiversity, Political Theory, and Mental Health

Divergences of Reason: Neurodiversity, Political Theory, and Mental Health
2025 Oxford Neurodiversity Network Reading Group 

Monday 27 January 2025, 12.45pm - 2pm

Online and in person, Seminar Room, Radcliffe Humanities, Radcliffe Observatory Quarter Woodstock

Open to all, but registration required for the online audience.

Register here to join the reading group online only

Online registration closes 15 minutes before the start of the event. You will be sent the joining link within 48 hours of the event, on the day and once again 10 minutes before the event starts.

This reading group seeks to explore the intersections of neurodivergence, political theory, and mental health, rethinking dominant political frameworks through the lens of neurodivergent experiences. By foregrounding divergences from normative conceptions of reason and mental health, we will examine how neurodiversity challenges political assumptions, exposing the limits of traditional critiques of power, social justice, and liberation.

Key themes will include the political dimensions of diagnosis and care, the entanglements of neurodiversity with disability justice, and the psychological impacts of systemic oppression. We will also explore how neurodivergent perspectives reimagine resistance and redefine political action in contexts shaped by white supremacy, cisheteropatriarchy, and neoliberal capitalism. Central questions include:

• How do neurodivergent experiences complicate critiques of pathologization, the criminalization of poverty, and disciplinary power?
• How do frameworks of disability, neurodiversity, and mental illness intersect with conceptions of resistance, policy-making, justice?
• What would liberation and community look like for neurodivergent, Mad, and/or mentally ill individuals in oppressive systems?

Readings will draw from neurodiversity studies, critical mental health scholarship, and political theory, with an emphasis on works by queer, racialized, disabled, and feminist authors. The first session will discuss excerpts from All the Weight of Our Dreams: On Living Racialized Autism, edited by Lydia X. Z. Brown, E. Ashkenazy, and Morénike Giwa Onaiwu. Future readings will be collaboratively decided.

This group prioritizes accessibility, flexibility, and neurodivergent-friendly practices. Sessions will take place in a well-lit, calming space, fostering a collaborative environment free of rigid academic expectations. Participants can engage in ways that feel comfortable—by listening, contributing comments beforehand, or participating in discussions at their own pace. Silent moments, reflection breaks, and self-regulation tools will ensure inclusivity and mutual respect.

Open to all, from experienced scholars to newcomers, this group seeks to collectively reimagine a world where mental health and political theory embrace difference, inclusivity, and liberation.

Bibliography/ Potential Readings (all suggestions welcome!)

Mohammed Abouelleil Rashed. “Mad Pride and the Creation of Culture.” Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement, vol. 94, 2023, pp. 201–217.

Lydia X. Z. Brown, E. Ashkenazy, & Morénike Giwa Onaiwu (Eds.). All the Weight of Our Dreams: On Living Racialized Autism. Lincoln, Nebraska: DragonBee Press, an imprint of the Autism Women's Network, 2017.

Jenny Bergenmar, Louise Creechan, & Anna Stenning (Eds.). Critical Neurodiversity Studies: Divergent Textualities in Literature and Culture. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021.

Robert Chapman. Empire of Normality: Neurodiversity as Resistance. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022.

Robert Chapman & Havi Carel. “Neurodiversity, Epistemic Injustice, and the Good Human Life.” Journal of Social Philosophy, vol. 53, 2022, pp. 614–631.

Nick Walker. Neuroqueer Heresies: Notes on the Neurodiversity Paradigm, Autistic Empowerment, and Postnormal Possibilities. Fort Worth, TX: Autonomous Press, 2021.

Fernand Deligny. The Arachnean and Other Texts. Translated by Drew S. Burk and Catherine Porter. Minneapolis, MN: Univocal Publishing, 2015.

de Hooge, A. N.. “Binary Boys: Autism, Aspie Supremacy and Post/Humanist Normativity.” Disability Studies Quarterly, vol. 39, no. 1, 2019. https://doi.org/10.18061/dsq.v39i1.6461.

Ted Curtis, Eric Irwin, Lesley Mitchell, Liz Durkin, & Brian Douied. “The Need for a Mental Patients Union.” In Mad Pride: A Celebration of Mad Culture, edited by Ted Curtis et al., London: Spare Change Books, 1999.

Johanna Hedva. "Sick Woman Theory." Mask Magazine, January 2016.

bell hooks. “Healing Our Wounds: Liberatory Mental Health Care.” In Killing Rage: Ending Racism. New York: Henry Holt, 1995.

Meaghan Krazinski. "Celebrating Neurodivergence amid Social Injustice." Hypatia, vol. 38, no. 4, 2023, pp. 726–745. https://doi.org/10.1017/hyp.2023.79.

Bradley Lewis. "A Mad Fight: Psychiatry and Disability Activism." The Disability Studies Reader, edited by Lennard J. Davis, 4th ed., New York: Routledge, 2013, pp. 339–353.

Erin Manning. The Minor Gesture. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2016.

Elizabeth Cady Maher. "Wolf Girls and Mechanical Boys: Whiteness and Assimilation in Bruno Bettelheim’s Narratives of Autism." Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies, vol. 12, no. 2, 2018, pp. 167–183.

Kamran Nazeer. Send in the Idiots: Stories from the Other Side of Autism. New York: Bloomsbury, 2006.

Jenara Nerenberg. Divergent Mind: Thriving in a World That Wasn't Designed for You. New York: HarperOne, 2020.

Ari Ne’eman & Elizabeth Pellicano. "Neurodiversity as Politics." Autism, vol. 24, no. 8, 2020, pp. 1947–1949.

John J. Pitney Jr.. The Politics of Autism: Navigating the Contested Spectrum. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015.

John J. Pitney Jr.. Autism Policy and Politics. Accessed October 25, 2016. http://www.autismpolicyblog.com.

Marion Quirici. "Geniuses Without Imagination: Discourses of Autism, Ability, and Achievement." Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies, vol. 9, no. 3, 2015, pp. 255–272.

Edith Sheffer. Asperger's Children: The Origins of Autism in Nazi Vienna. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2018.

Steve Silberman. NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity. New York: Avery, 2015.

Pete Wharmby. Untypical: How the World Isn’t Built for Autistic People and What We Should All Do About It. London: HarperCollins, 2022.

R. Woods, D. Milton, L. Arnold, & S. Graby. "Redefining Critical Autism Studies: A More Inclusive Interpretation." Disability & Society, vol. 33, no. 6, 2018, pp. 974–979.

Stevenson, J. L., Harp, B., & Gernsbacher, M. A.. "Infantilizing Autism." Disability Studies Quarterly, vol. 31, no. 3, 2011. https://doi.org/10.18061/dsq.v31i3.1675.

Melanie Yergeau. Authoring Autism: On Rhetoric and Neurological Queerness. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2018.