Counter-cartographies: Neurodivergence and the Errancies of Performance, a book talk with Leon Hilton

The Department of Performance Studies is excited to welcome back PS Alum Leon Hilton (Ph.D. ’16) to give a talk on his most recent book publication, Counter-cartographies: Neurodivergence and the Errancies of Performance (University of Minnesota Press). This talk draws together methods and critical apertures from performance theory and disability studies to describe hidden practices, silent countermeasures, and overlooked insurgent strategies for reconfiguring the world so that it might nurture, rather than annihilate, the persistence and flourishing of autistic and other neurodivergent ways of being. It maps out unseen pathways for thinking, watching, and responding to the life called up and made visible through the apertures for thought afforded by the concept of neurodivergence.

The talk will be followed by a Q/A session moderated by Professor and Chair Ann Pellegriniwith a reception to follow.

This event is organized by the Department of Performance Studies and cosponsored by the NYU Center for Disability Studies.

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Bio:

Leon J. Hilton is an associate professor of Theatre Arts and Performance Studies at Brown University. He is the founder and co-convener of Brown’s Disability Studies Working Group, launched in 2022 with the support of the Cogut Institute for the Humanities. He is the author of Counter-cartographies: Neurodivergence and the Errancies of Performance (University of Minnesota Press), and his scholarship and criticism has also been published in Third Text, The Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies, American Quarterly, The Los Angeles Review of Books, TDR/The Drama Review, and elsewhere. He is a member of the editorial collective of the journal Social Text, and sits on the advisory board of Spectrum Theatre Ensemble, a neurodiverse theatre company based in Providence, RI. In 2022, he received the Mellon Emerging Faculty Leaders Award from the Institute for Citizens & Scholars.