The Stereotype of "The Autistic Savant"
A short talk by Professor Joseph N. Straus followed by discussion
Thursday 28 May 2026, 4.30pm – 5.30pm
Online (Teams) and in person (Learning Centre, Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities, Oxford, OX2 6GG)
Registration is required for online participation
“Autistic savants” are understood as people whose high level of skill in one area stands in contrast to their perceived deficiencies in other areas. Their stories have mostly been told either by psychiatrists and psychologists within a pathologizing medicalized model of disability or as inspirational tales of overcoming in popular and social media. Both of these narrative frames have enfreaked them as alien Others, whose gifts and disabilities place them outside the normal run of human intelligence and creativity. With a focus mostly on music, I will give a more realistic account of their intellectual, musical, and creative lives. They are not freaks, or aliens, or miracle - they are autistic people who are good at things.
Biography:
Joseph Straus is Distinguished Professor of Music Theory at the CUNY Graduate Center. With a specialization in music since 1900, he has written numerous technical music-theoretical articles and scholarly monographs on a variety of topics in modernist music. He has also written a series of articles and books that engage disability as a cultural practice, including Extraordinary Measures: Music and Disability (Oxford University Press, 2011) and Broken Beauty: Musical Modernism and the Representation of Disability (Oxford University Press, 2018).
This event is co-organised by the TORCH Neurodiversity Network and the Humans in Humanities Network. It features a short talk by Professor Joseph N. Straus, followed by discussion. Participants are welcome to join either in person or online. Registration is required for online participation.
Please note that recording of any kind is not permitted at this event.
For enquiries and to join the events mailing list, contact: neurodiversity@torch.ox.ac.uk or human-ities@torch.ox.ac.uk
Humans in Humanities Network is part of TORCH Student Networks, Neurodiversity Network
