Autisme, j’accuse!: Life-writing, autism, and politics in the work of Hugo Horiot
Autisme, j’accuse!: Life-writing, autism, and politics in the work of Hugo Horiot
Autism has generated a great deal of controversy, culturally, intellectually and politically. The context for this in recent years in France is unusual and has been the site of strong antagonism. These debates are political in terms of policy implications and disagreements along political lines but also entail the politics of knowledge, and the question of who has the right to speak for whom. Competing groups – parents, ‘experts’, and autistic adults have different claims to validity as knowledge-bearers. This epistemological validity is vital to creating wider public understanding and determining policy directions. Autism life-writing is a new phenomenon in French and contributes to this set of debates. In order to illuminate this further, this article will offer an account of the first best-selling memoir by an autistic individual in France. The book, L’Empereur, c’est moi, is by Hugo Horiot, and was published in 2013, at the height of the ‘autism battle’ in the French public sphere.
256-265
Orchard, Vivienne
887b56d5-eda6-4583-ba2e-709de2ccff3a
1 August 2019
Orchard, Vivienne
887b56d5-eda6-4583-ba2e-709de2ccff3a
Orchard, Vivienne
(2019)
Autisme, j’accuse!: Life-writing, autism, and politics in the work of Hugo Horiot.
French Cultural Studies, 30 (3), .
(doi:10.1177/0957155819861033).
Abstract
Autism has generated a great deal of controversy, culturally, intellectually and politically. The context for this in recent years in France is unusual and has been the site of strong antagonism. These debates are political in terms of policy implications and disagreements along political lines but also entail the politics of knowledge, and the question of who has the right to speak for whom. Competing groups – parents, ‘experts’, and autistic adults have different claims to validity as knowledge-bearers. This epistemological validity is vital to creating wider public understanding and determining policy directions. Autism life-writing is a new phenomenon in French and contributes to this set of debates. In order to illuminate this further, this article will offer an account of the first best-selling memoir by an autistic individual in France. The book, L’Empereur, c’est moi, is by Hugo Horiot, and was published in 2013, at the height of the ‘autism battle’ in the French public sphere.
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FCS V Orchard PURE copy
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Accepted/In Press date: 7 February 2019
e-pub ahead of print date: 30 July 2019
Published date: 1 August 2019
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Local EPrints ID: 428807
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/428807
ISSN: 0957-1558
PURE UUID: cfab409e-60b5-4f5c-b85b-c5d5b9b0c207
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Date deposited: 11 Mar 2019 17:30
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 07:39
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