Counter-cartographies

Neurodivergence and the Errancies of Performance

Leon J. Hilton

$270

Hardback

Forthcoming
Pre-Order now

QTY:

English

University of Minnesota Press
26 November 2025

Disability: social aspects; Psychology

How to remake the world with neurodivergence at its heart

What if we embraced neurodivergent ways of being not as deviations to be corrected but as vital ways of inhabiting the world? What new realities might emerge? Bringing a much-needed humanistic perspective to the study of autism and other forms of neurodivergence, Counter-cartographies offers a bold reimagining of neurological difference, moving beyond rigid diagnostic frameworks to uncover more expansive, generative modes of existence.

Engaging the work of Fernand Deligny to trace how modern taxonomies of neurodivergence have hardened over time, Leon J. Hilton questions how these categories might instead serve as tools for remapping the world with neurodivergence at its center. At the heart of Counter-cartographies is an exploration of performance and performativity that reveals how the norm of neurotypical reality is continually reinforced through acts of doing, redoing, and undoing.

Charting the historical shift away from ""mind"" and toward ""brain"" and moving fluidly across disciplines-from digital art and documentary cinema to cybernetics and radical mental health movements-Hilton illuminates the deep interconnections between performance, perception, and the historical construction of the ""neurotypical."" Through close readings of works by William Pope.L, Mel Baggs, Wu Tsang, and others, Hilton also examines how neurodivergence has been represented, embodied, and materialized in contemporary art and media. Restless, engrossing, and persistently attuned to moments of rupture when the neurotypical order falters, Counter-cartographies charts a path toward a more capacious, imaginative world.

Retail e-book files for this title are screen-reader friendly with images accompanied by short alt text and/or extended descriptions.

By: Leon J. Hilton
Imprint: University of Minnesota Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 216mm, Width: 140mm, Spine: 12mm
Weight: 397g
ISBN: 9781517909024
ISBN 10: 1517909023
Pages: 232
Publication Date: 26 November 2025
Audience: College/higher education , Further / Higher Education
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Leon J. Hilton is assistant professor of theatre arts and performance studies and co-convener of the Disability Studies Working Group at Brown University. He is a member of the editorial collective of the journal Social Text and on the advisory board of Spectrum Theatre Ensemble, a neurodiverse theatre company based in Providence, Rhode Island.

Reviews for Counter-cartographies: Neurodivergence and the Errancies of Performance

""Notable for its deep, sustained attention to figurations of neurodivergence over the past sixty years, Counter-cartographies deftly tackles pressing questions in disability studies. This is an exemplary recovery project in disability studies, identifying new modes for thinking about neurodivergence as both an identity and an endeavor.""-M. Remi Yergeau, author of Authoring Autism: On Rhetoric and Neurological Queerness ""Counter-cartographies teaches us that neurodivergence is a propulsive force-an insurgent movement-that leaps, crawls, dances, swerves toward elsewheres beyond the neurotypical. Leon J. Hilton guides us on a wondrously wayward path from the asylum to the theater, from the campus to the wilderness, amid vast mindscapes and lifeworlds of autistic people. The result is an exquisite, kaleidoscopic map that plots worlds and worldmaking. This book is moving-because it performs errant movements and also because it is so deeply compelling that you will be moved.""-La Marr Jurelle Bruce, author of How to Go Mad without Losing Your Mind: Madness and Black Radical Creativity