Neurodiversity and the Contemporary in the 21st-Century Novel

Offering a provocative analysis of neurodivergent and 21st century perspectives on time and some of its cultural expressions, this open access book is the first comparative study of the intersections between neurodiversity and the evolving field of Contemporary Studies.

Blending literary close reading and sociological discourse analysis, the book turns to fiction for the strategic insights it can offer into cultural imaginaries of neurodiversity and time. With a focus on 21st century novels from authors such as Jonathan Safran Foer, Lisa Genova, John Wray, and Julie Dachez, it interrogates the entanglements between categories of crip time and the contemporary, examines the processes of exclusion governing neurodivergence construction, and advocates for a new vocabulary demonstrating the role of contemporary neuroinclusive perspectives in 21st century epistemological processes.

The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by the Wellcome Trust.

Author: Nicola Simonetti
Binding Type: Hardcover
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Published: 09/17/2026
Series: Critical Interventions in the Medical and Health Humanities
Pages: 256
Weight: 1.17lbs
Size: 9.21h x 6.14w x 0.63d
ISBN: 9781350587410