Matthew Rubery: "Oliver Sacks's Neurodivergent Readers"

Abstract:

Oliver Sacks’s bestselling books played a pivotal role in raising public awareness of neurodiversity, particularly in relation to unconventional or stigmatized forms of reading. Building on the concept of metagnosis, or the belated recognition of a neurological condition, this presentation proposes that Sacks’s humane and compassionate case studies helped many individuals become aware of their own cognitive differences for the first time. Rather than pathologizing atypical cognition, Sacks’s narratives enabled readers to identify with neurodivergent experiences, reframing what might be labeled as “bad” or “impaired” reading as simply different. Ultimately, this talk endorses Sacks’s notion of “reading pluralism,” advocating for a broader, more inclusive understanding of reading that recognizes the diverse ways in which people do it.