Lecture: What Do Autism Therapies Do (if they do not Cure Autism)? – Leuven, Belgium

Public lecture by Gil Eyal, Columbia University. It is free and open to the public but registration is necessary (via gert.meyers@kuleuven.be). More details here.

The lecture will take place from 17:30 to 19:00 PM at the Kardinaal Mercierzaal of the Institute of Philosophy (Kardinaal Mercierplein 2, 3000 Leuven). 

Abstract: There are many different ways to think about or evaluate the therapies, interventions and treatments given to children with autism. In evaluation studies, they would be judged in terms of their effectiveness in reducing certain symptoms and/or in terms of their costs. More critical research seeks to assess therapies in terms of how normalizing they are or tolerant of cognitive difference. In this talk, I will propose several other ways to think about the significance of these therapies, and understand them as constitutive features of the contemporary experience of autism. First, therapies may be analyzed as mechanisms for translating and aligning the interests (broadly construed) of the different parties involved in the therapeutic act – patients, parents, therapists, teachers, doctors, etc. – thereby creating stable networks of expertise. Second, they may be analyzed as grids of specification that target, differentiate and name certain specific aspects of behavior, communication and comportment, thereby giving shape to the specific way in which we understand and diagnose autism today. Finally, autism therapies may also be understood as engaging in “ontological politics” (Mol 2002) and elaborating an infrastructure supporting autistic personhood.

Bio: Gil Eyal is Professor of Sociology at Columbia University in New York. He is also co-leading a recent initiative on “Precision Medicine & Society” at Columbia, meant to bring together social scientists who are doing cutting-edge work on recent development in medicine, and put them in conversation with medical researchers and leaders of medical education involved in Precision Medicine projects. Among his recent books and articles are: (with Brendan Hart, Emine Onculer, Neta Oren and Natasha Rossi), “The Autism Matrix: The Social Origins of the Autism Epidemic”. (Polity 2010); “For A Sociology of Expertise” (American Journal of Sociology 2013); (with Dan Navon) “Looping Genomes: Diagnostic Change and the Genetic Makeup of the Autism Population.” (American Journal of Sociology 2016); and “The Physician-Patient Relationship in the Age of Precision Medicine.” (forthcoming in Genetics in Medicine). He is currently preparing a book, tentatively titled “The Crisis of Expertise.”

This lecture is made possible thanks to the financial support of the Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek van Vlaanderen (FWO) – WOG “Autism Ethics Network”. On 15-16/11 a number of research network activities (only open to affiliated researchers) will be conducted.