Chaos of genres and media as enrichment of self-representation: autism & representation

The topic of this presentation deals with a subgenre within life writing, namely illness narratives, and more generally illness narratives through different genres and media. More specifically, I would like to investigate a recently published book ((on)draaglijk lijden, de pijn van het anders-zijn (2011)) that is using different genres and media (such as memoirs, e- mails, interviews, drawings, photo’s, etcetera) to translate personal experiences of people with Asperger-syndrome. Because of the different genres and media within one book, it seems that there is no structured plot and no overview of striking events (what most illness narratives or pathographies do have). Instead, the book represents some sort of chaos (of different genres and media), but at the same time that chaos is the plot. It enriches the witnessing and the representation of the self of people with Asperger-syndrome because it illustrates one of the problems they encounter: the lack of structure they face in their daily lives and how to negotiate that. The methodology I will use in this analysis, integrates methods used for conversational stories (Eakin & Couser) and literary-theoretical considerations of the multimodal novel (Hallet) – two approaches often kept separate in narrative studies. The aim of my presentation is twofold. On a theoretical level, I want to illustrate that by using different genres and media, illness narratives can challenge their classical theoretical considerations (Couser, Frank, Gilman). On a more practical level I want to clarify how people with Asperger-syndrome translate their experience with the world.