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Slow Processing: A New Minor Literature by Autists and Modernists
- Journal of Modern Literature
- Indiana University Press
- Volume 38, Number 1, Fall 2014
- pp. 147-165
- 10.2979/jmodelite.38.1.147
- Article
- Additional Information
Many contemporary texts written by individuals with autism spectrum disorders share a specific way of using language and a non-normative form of organization with experimental literature written by modernists like T.S. Eliot, Virginia Woolf, and Hugh MacDiarmid. These texts present protagonists in moments of cognitive overload, and they s(t)imulate this cognitive state using literary techniques that require readers to expend more effort when processing them. For example, onomatopoeia and hyperbole draw attention to sensory stimuli to which readers would not otherwise have access, and authors like Tito Mukhopadhyay and H.D. juxtapose different literary elements without reconciling them. When exposed to competing stimuli, the protagonists of these texts strive to make sense of their environment by creating new and unusual connections — an effort reflected in their unconventional figurative language. Based on these convergences, these texts constitute what Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari call a minor literature.