The Art of Stimming

🔔END OF YEAR ROUNDUP🔔

Well- a whole year nearly gone! Time to check back in with David's 'Art of Stimming' thesis and see what's been going on in 2023...

CHAPTER WORK: So, the first major task of 2023 has been actually getting my big patchwork of writing organised into projects and sub-projects. The result has been a long year of what I've taken to referring to ask 'chapter work': writing extending essays on various subjects, researching their backgrounds, then slowly filling up the connective tissue between them and moulding them into prospective chapters of the thesis. This year the subjects have ranged across everything from autistic stimming and disability models, to screen performance theory and -most excitingly- my own theory of "transductive dance". The latter is a crucial pivot-point of my argument and centres on the psychological conversion of mental and physical overstimulation into visceral dance performances. It's certainly been the most interesting aspect of this year's work- but also the most challenging! I'm now at the point of thesis where my own work is beginning to become just as important as the perspectives of others, which means it has to stand on its own to feet (and stand up to scrutiny!)

CASE STUDIES: Leading straight on from the previous point, the work done on transductive dance resulted in a trip back to several of the original case studies that inspired the PhD way back in 2020! These included the films Billy Elliot and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre- both featuring dance performances notable for their extremely visceral content and style as danced by Gunnar Hansen and Jamie Bell. These films are not only close to my heart as strong personal favourites, but also for the notable way in which the characters' arcs hinge around these dance performances and the ramifications of them. Indeed, it was the connection between the visceral physicality of these dances and the equally-visceral & cathartic processes of autistic stimming which sparked the idea for the thesis and, hopefully, will go on to become its centre. So, writing about these case studies has been an excellent trip down memory lane and a solid bit of overall progress! Currently, the writing on transductive dance is waiting to be integrated with an extended essay on stimming, and the two will form their own wider chapter in time

A NEW PROJECT: Lastly, a major recent development in the extracurricular sphere of my academic life has been my commitment to a new project with a colleague. Now that FilmLab (see last years post(s) for context) has run its course and the team have gone their separate ways, I've been looking for another outlet to disseminate my ideas- both thesis-related and otherwise. However, after a recent meet-up with a friend, we ended up devising a method for the two of us to work together on some psuedo-academic writing. Without giving too much away, we're looking to set up a new journal collecting writing, journalism, and art from young and interesting new Glaswegian voices; with a rough focus on urbanism and hauntology. Myself and my colleague will be editors of whatever material is submitted, and each issue will feature a collaborative editorial piece by either or both of us. Naturally, I will be looking to combine my own writing for journal with the neurodivergent perspective and a few choice ideas from my research, and there are already a few ideas brewing in relation to the modern autistic experience of cities and urban environments. Watch this space!

So, that's about the size of it all! It's been a busy year but, thankfully, real progress has been made. I'd like to thank my partner Katie, my supervisors Amy & Karen, my colleagues, my family, and my friends for all their fabulous support.

Here's to more progress, learning, and fresh insights that 2024 will hopefully bring!

All the best,

-D (23/12/23)

🔔 END-OF-YEAR ROUND UP 🔔

Yes, it’s an overdue end-of-year roundup! My apologies for letting this page go a little quiet over the past few months; this semester has been my busiest yet with teaching, chapter-writing and a long slew of other personal & professional complications. However, here’s a full end-of year update post to catch everyone up to date what’s been going on with my thesis.

NEW LIVING QUARTERS: The biggest development of the past few months is that I have officially moved into my flat in Glasgow and having been living happily with my partner. I’ve taken to quipping that I moved the furniture into the flat and arranged it, but Katie made it a home; her talents with soft furnishings, art and decor are undisputed and have made us both very comfortable of late. Having a base from which to work, alongside my office at Great George Street, has meant that throughout the numerous stressful deadlines and workloads of the semester I’ve had either a restful environment in which to work from home or a cosy place to come back to following quitting time!

TEACHING: In September this year I began teaching as a seminar tutor on the first year film course “Looking, Listening, Reading”, with two seminar groups of 20 students and duties including seminar planning, facilitating discussion and fielding questions whilst marking essays. The whole experience has been more rewarding than I could’ve hoped, and the joy I’ve experienced in trying my hardest to get future cineastes interested in the field has been a constant gift. Course material that we covered was as diverse as Wes Anderson, Danish crime TV and German Expressionism whilst the seminars were structured around work upon a specific film concept in question that week. Essay marking was a gruelling process, but absolutely necessary and all part of the job! Plus- it was fantastic to see a definite uptick in both quality of work and the marks I was able to afford it in the end-of-term essays. I’ll miss my students now that I’m back to regular PhD work next term, but I wish them well on the next stage of their academic film journeys- just as I made the same step almost 5 years ago!

CHAPTER PROGRESS: The end product of this term (besides the excellent experience of GTA-ing) has been the first glimmers of a full length chapter for my overall thesis. Taking the Rain Man writing sample from last term and extending its scope, I’ve been hard at work on a piece to explore the aftermath of Dustin Hoffman’s autistic template set in 1988 and how the physical performance of Autism went on to be be represented. This was by far my favourite piece of work to write & construct thus far down to the inclusion of hand-picked case studies; I’ve been working with What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, Sling Blade (one of my favourite films of all time), Cube, Mercury Rising, The Black Balloon, and the highly-controversial film Music- a real revelation as far as analytical potential goes! With the help of my supervisors we’ve worked this “second half” of the chapter down into a new form which I’m putting together as we speak. All-in-all it’s been a rough process as I still haven’t quite got used to the PhD mainstay of working out your writing as it hits the redraft page, but in the end we’re one step closer to the first chapter

RESEARCH CLUSTER: We’ve reached that awkward point of the post where I have to apologise for my memory; I can’t actually recall how much I’ve told you all about the following subject! Anyway, here goes! In September I met with two colleagues (Jonny Atkinson and Martina Saric) to found a new University cluster we named “Glasgow FilmLab: International Cinema In Dialogue”, a group to network and consolidate international students and film students across the University of Glasgow whilst exchanging knowledge and founding fresh perspectives through film screenings. So far, the cluster has been going strong with several popular screenings including Joseph Losey’s Eva, Murnau’s Nosferatu and Lynch’s Lost Highway; each with a short talk organised afterwards which helped to make the events more interactive and to build membership. Recently, we partnered with the Alchemy Experiment cafe to utilise their event space for screenings and commissioned one of their employees to make flyer art for us too- both have been huge successes. In the new year I’m planning to integrate FilmLab’s work with my own PhD a bit more, so watch this space!

So there you have it- a short overview of the big events from the Autumn & Winter 2022. Wherever you are and however you celebrate, happy holidays and I’ll see you all in the new year!

-D (24/12/22)

🔔 JUNE UPDATE 🔔
(Including APRIL and MAY)

I’m back!

After a couple of months off for personal & professional reasons I have returned with another thesis update. It’s really been one thing after another with the writing sample, APR, and my continuing quest to find a flat over many, many weeks! But, thankfully, I’m back to the grindstone with my research- and in my own office, to boot! I’ll cover the main news below as per usual and will hopefully be back to regular updates from now on.

All the best,

-David Lothian (Writer/Owner)

HEADLINES
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“APR SUCCESS”: I’m very, very happy to report that my Annual Progress Review is now over and done with and was a resounding success. Due to issues with finding a new place to live once my accommodation ran out, I was experiencing particularly high levels of stress and worrying daily about whether or not this would be reflected in my work and, consequently, my overall review. The writing sample on Rain Man was finished in time (with an extension) and went through several drafts- all of which changed its scope dramatically but without doubt for the better! The in-person review took place at the brand new Advanced Research Center building (in which I briefly got lost!) and my reviewer, Azadeh, was wonderful- so patient, calm, friendly and generous that my nerves melted away and we got down (along with Amy, my supervisor) to a long and important discussion. I was able to explain my thesis aloud very well, and also expressed some constructive criticism on the frequency and structure of in-depth feedback I had been receiving without any kind of pressure or negativity, and received some superb advice concerning academic writing & conferencing. We closed out by agreeing that it was high time I got straight back into my research and begin building a new literature review on discourses of autism & neurodivergency. All in all, I’m proud, pleased, and raring to go for whatever the next few months hold!

“GLASGOW FILMLAB”: At last, the time has come to announce my new project through the thesis’s social media! Over the past few months, myself and my colleagues Martina & Jonny (both PGRs) have been working to set up a brand new academic research cluster in the UoG film department- based around International Cinema. dedicated to promoting fresh dialogues and perspectives on International cinema whilst providing a “safe space” for aspiring film lecturers. The latter principle entails organising screenings of foreign films alongside a short presentation provided by volunteers (from the quorum of staff and members) on the film and its content to create a cushion of experience for those wishing to pursue a career in film lecturing. We will also be inviting visiting lecturers and academics to give talks on the various foreign cinemas we engage with across the calendar of events. I myself will be taking the first presentation spot at our opening event: giving a lecture on textual analysis of the film Nosferatu (1922 dir. F.W. Murnau) and its influence on German cinema. I will also be attending a special prelaunch talk in July at the Global Connects event to promote our cluster and the coming Nosferatu screening in September, and explain how our £1,000 collaborative research award won a few months ago will help expand our horizons. I’m excited about this new series of opportunities and cannot wait to get going on the organisation of future meetings

“A NEW OFFICE”: One of the biggest bits of news that I have to impart is that I recently moved into a brand new office space at 73 Great George Street on campus. I was overjoyed to receive the news as I always work best with peace, quiet, and focused solitude- so a dedicated 24-hour desk in a shared but quiet room is just what the doctor ordered. I’ve personalised it as best I can and have been spending a good deal of time there working on my new assignment which is…

…“A NEW LIT REVIEW”: I’m currently designing and working through a new literature review on the subject of discourses of Autism and neurodivergency in the world at large. It will focus largely on critical, theoretical, and auto ethnographic work by neurotypical and neurodivergent authors to explore the discourses and debates surrounding autism and the neurodivergent self-advocacy movement. So far, I’ve found myself deep into the work of Temple Grandin- the preeminent autistic autoethnographic writer & scientist whose book “Emergence: Labelled Autistic” was to biographic literature as Rain Man was to film. It was a fantastic read and an invaluable grounding in the very basics of autistic discourse; indeed, I found myself identifying hugely with many of her experiences of childhood and growing up which has raised several talking points come the time for my own forays into autoethnographic practice. As I write this, I’m moving on to her book “Thinking In Pictures: My Life With Autism” which promises a far more in-depth look at the complexities of her experiences, and I have several more texts lined up for afterwards.

ADMIN
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N/A: Nothing of note this month!

WHAT I’VE BEEN READING & WATCHING
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In early May I visited the Centre For Contemporary Arts in Glasgow and was extremely pleased to be able to pick up my first ever hard copy of an academic film journal: Film International. I discovered that the issue I’d bought was very serendipitous indeed as it contained an article surrounding representations of autistic characters in cinema with relation to how their specific family lives are structured. The piece, by Maria Evangelia & Assimina Tsibidaki, has proven a great read and pointed me in some interesting directions concerning discourses of parenting and the nature of “support” that autistic characters (and, by extension, real-life individuals) can reasonably receive. It’s good to know that now more than ever autism & neurodivergency are still making their way through channels of scholarship and research. Other fascinating articles I looked at in this issue were an in-depth Mise-en-scène analysis of The Leopard (1963 dir. Luchino Visconti), and a lengthy analysis of the problematically-Eurocentric roots & routes that filmic narrative storytelling is built upon. It has all captured my imagination hugely, and I’m looking forward to the day when I will inevitably find myself writing something of similar scope and length!

As mentioned above, the writing of Temple Grandin has been a huge part of my life and work at the moment. She’s a figure I had heard a lot about -especially during my younger years- and had always meant to look into properly given her authoritative position and wealth of autobiographic writing on the firsthand realities of neurodivergence. Because of what a complicated and infamously-varied person-to-person, subject-to-subject condition Autism is I was actually pretty stunned to discover how many specific (as well as obvious/general) aspects of Grandin’s childhood I identified with; particularly her inability to express inner thoughts and profound discomfort due to the oppressive emotional & mental complexities of her subjectivity. She writes a great deal about how alone, ashamed, and wracked with borderline self-loathing she felt as a child and an adolescent in light of her various differences and the constant danger of violence that her overloads and sensory issues presented- all of which I had experienced in some form or other. Grandin also refers in-depth to a powerful and profound energy that is bound up in autistics, young and old, and -like me- is a firm believer that it can be a force for good if harnessed and fully understood. Feeling such a commonality with arguably the most important autistic writer of the modern age has been both a tremendous confidence boost and another key stepping stone in my research.

My viewing lately has been dominated by a “greatest hits” rewatch of the film of Danny Boyle: one of my favourite living filmmakers and one with a considerably unique and relevant twist to his oeuvre. Boyle’s greatest strength lies in his expertise with translating raw, complex, and hugely varied psychological and emotional energy into his films’ iconic editing and visuals. Rewatching Trainspotting, Shallow Grave, and 28 Days Later I have really been struck by how viscerally arresting the camerawork and performances in Boyle’s key projects are: the stomach-sick kinetics of he**in addiction, the jubilant rushes of privileged hysteria, and -above all- the dark side of human physicality reimagined as 100% raw rage and violence. This has all given me pause for thought and A) an idea for a monograph, B) the impetus to do some research on Boyle’s use of physicality. Every little helps!

🔔 MARCH UPDATE 🔔

Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening to you all wherever you are! It’s that time again- the monthly thesis update for March is here. Apologies for the shortness of this month’s post- things have been very focused and quiet lately, there’s been a bit of a steep dip as the APR approaches so the writing sample has taken a definite front seat combined with a new lit review. As always, more below!

All the best to you & yours and please enjoy the news!

-David Lothian (Writer/Owner)

HEADLINES
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“THE ANNUAL PROGRESS REVIEW”: As I write this, preparation is well underway for my annual progress review or “APR”. In layman’s terms, it’s an extended check-up on how my writing, reading, and training for the thesis is going and it’s conducted by the faculty. There are some forms to be completed and read and, most importantly, a 2,500-4,000 word writing sample to be submitted for helpful feedback as part of the process. You may remember from last month’s update that I’ve been working on a performance analysis of the film Rain Man (1988 dir. Barry Levinson), and upon the suggestion of my supervisors I’ve decided that this will be finalised, polished, and submitted for feedback! Currently, I’ve been engaged with a bit of extra research to bolster the meat of the analysis and engage with some new angles suggested from the last batch of feedback; the next deadline is this Friday after which we’ll all be meeting next week to discuss edits and the APR. All very exciting and informative! This has been my first proper high-level task (compiling a bibliography, using references, polishing my style) so it’s been a welcome and fairly essential challenge

ADMIN
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N/A: Nothing of note this month!

WHAT I’VE BEEN READING & WATCHING
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As part of my APR sample, I’ve been compiling a rough literature review for the key writing on Levinson’s Rain Man. So far, one of my favourite standouts amongst the rather scant criticism was an interesting and borderline-esoteric essay by critic Norman K. Denzin entitled “Rain Man in Las Vegas: Where is the Action for the Postmodern Self?” It’s a pretty classic example of that age-old problem faced by research students: a predominantly tangential piece of work with the bare minimum that’s helpful to you yourself and a good deal that isn’t helpful but is highly interesting! Denzin explores Hoffman & Cruise’s performances from the perspective of the “postmodern self”: “…not a self grounded in action, but a self-grounded in sense-making experience”. Denzin sees the two brothers as men whose lives have been forever altered by the postmodern world and who cannot communicate adequately with each other or, indeed, anyone else due to their impairments (Ray’s autism, Charlie’s self-centredness). They engage with “sense-making experiences” across their journey together to confront/explain their own personalities and foibles. This fascinated me and opened up a good deal of extra scope for my thinking on the film whilst also inflecting the way I viewed other media. I recently went to the cinema to see the latest adaptation of the now timeless and (arguably) tired Batman mythos: The Batman (2022 dir. Matt Reeves), a film I’d been wracked with excitement and anticipation for months ever since its trailer and early details were made public.

The daringly dark script, haptically-rousing soundtrack, and beautiful cinematography did not disappoint and I was pleased with just how vindicated I felt concerning my original predictions surrounding the film’s originality and attempts to rejuvenate a seriously ailing set of characters and IPs. At the centre of the movie was a superbly and supremely moody/intense performance from Robert Pattinson -one of my absolute favourite actors- as Bruce Wayne/Batman. Denzin’s essay caused me to reflect in part on how openly skewed and split and embattled Pattinson’s Wayne found his sense of self across the film’s story. Whilst this is the most awkward and uncommunicative Bruce Wayne yet, this version of Batman is one with a stronger violent streak brought on by guilt and fear of his ownlack of effectiveness. This results in a journey across his early exploits as a superhero which is designed to help the audience make sense of Batman’s unusual brutality and to help the Caped Crusader seal up the rift of blurred lines between his two selves: the burgeoning Batman and the broken Bruce Wayne. And of course, little need be said of the un-self-aware postmodernism inherent in making ANOTHER dark, gritty Batman reboot- perhaps this is a LITERAL postmodern self for the now 83 year-old character of Batman! However, I did seriously enjoy the film and recommend you check it out for yourself if you fancy a fun and thrilling night out at the pictures. Always interesting how work & play can blend gently together sometimes- makes me thankful I have this little space to share such happenings and musings...

🔔 FEBRUARY UPDATE 🔔

Hello all! Time for the monthly update on how the thesis is going and what’s been happening in my world of autism & visual media. Research has begun in earnest as I’ve started exploring some very interesting dimensions of performance theory, the funding application has reached an important new stage, and I’m now at work on a second writing sample.

Wishing you all the best and I hope you enjoy the news below!

-David Lothian (Writer/Owner)

HEADLINES
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“APPLICATION AT SECOND STAGE”: I am very pleased & proud to announce that my SGSAH AHRC Doctoral Training Studentship application has reached the second stage and was nominated to go forward to the next relevant panel! It required only minor edits and was sent in in time for the 14th of February deadline so I have my fingers crossed! As I mentioned in last month’s update, the importance of autoethnography was not to be understated- with the process taking more of a front-seat, my supervisors suggested I look into SGSAH training for work in that field which was added to the application. That’s it for now, more to follow ASAP.

“PERFORMANCE, PERFORMANCE, PERFORMANCE!”: Now that I’m into the main body of my research I’ve found myself deeply immersed in the study of screen performance and the relevant theories on it. I’ve been particularly engaged with the works of Andrew Klevan and James Naremore. Klevan worked as an excellent little primer on the subject: explaining the basics of how one observes, understands, and critiques a cinematic performance and the history of such theories, whilst Naremore’s book “Acting In The Cinema” (my current project!) is a good deal more intellectual and less academic on the subject as a whole. His style is more lyrical and intensive whilst functioning as a deep-focus overview of the craft of acting from early Hollywood on to more diverse and later examples. However, each has been a great help in their own way and have been assisting in the content of my…

“…SECOND WRITING SAMPLE”: Feedback from the first sample was very good, but mainly centred on the need to incorporate more of a performance-based analysis of Levinson’s Rain Man. Thus, as I write this (15/02/22) I am at work on my second sample- representing my first foray into the world of performance analysis! I’m utilising a synthesis of both Klevan & critic Charles Affron’s contentions on the development of cinematic themes through performance in a close look at the sequence in which Ray (autistic) & Charlie (neurotypical) first meet. All is well at the moment, and I’m working towards a deadline on February 17th. This has been an important and valuable “first” for the thesis across the field of performance theory, and I’m looking forward to taking both the content of the sample and, indeed, my wider understanding of this sphere of critique to the next level(s).

ADMIN
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N/A: Nothing of note this month!

WHAT I’VE BEEN READING & WATCHING
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At the beginning of February (after finishing Rudolph Grey’s “Nightmare of Ecstasy: The Life & Art of Edward D. Wood Jnr.”) I began a voyage of discovery into the 2008 edition of Michael Peppiatt’s seminal art biography “Francis Bacon: Anatomy of an Enigma”. Bacon was an intriguing figure I’d encountered several times during my undergrad in Aberdeen: most notably when my flatmates took a course on representations of the human body in visual media and Bacon’s art took centre stage during a discussion on artistic body horror. I’d always had a passing interest in the seductively frightening and grotesque imagery of his art shown to me by my colleagues- and when I found myself in need of another biographical reading experience, I thought it was time I learned more about the master of “brutal fact”. I was also aware of David Lynch (one of my all-time favourite filmmakers) having mentioned Bacon as a key influence on his style, so the field of cinema was already at the forefront of my mind as I read the early sections on Francis Bacon’s developing visual tastes/interests. According to Peppiatt, Bacon was a huge fan of Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin (1925 dir. Sergei Eisenstein) and Lang’s Metropolis (1926 dir. Fritz Lang); two of my favourite early films and both saturated in nightmarish expressionism- particularly that of the human mouth. This really caught my attention, as the compulsive contortions of the mouth in moments of sensual overload is a key tenet of both my own autistic stimming and the visceral power of certain neurotypical-yet-passingly-autistic performances I am set to analyse and cover in my thesis. Indeed, this was only the first of several delightfully and fascinatingly serendipitous connections to my work that I discovered in Bacon’s art, style, and tastes; including his interest in what he termed “the brutality of fact” and the raw, unbridled visceral power of the human form twisted into pivotal extremes by deep compulsions from within. I’m greatly enjoying the book and am seriously considering incorporating some references into my analytics and arguments!

James Naremore’s “Acting In The Cinema” has also formed a key component of my reading material at the moment and has provided both useful grounding and a few challenges due to his unique style. The early chapters of the book are mostly dedicated to quite complex explorations of how we as critics try to “pin-down” and delineate what constitutes a performer acting in film vs. Any other kind of performance. Whilst some areas are more complicated than others, I am finding the broad focus very interesting and am looking forward to a narrowing into techniques of close analysis and thematic interaction.

In the world of film, I’ve been largely occupied with yet more of Levinson’s Rain Man, but also enjoyed a recent & momentous rewatch of one of my favourite horror movies: The Devils (1971 dir. Ken Russell). Notoriously shocking, controversial, daring, and graphic- it deals with the historical event of the “Loudon Possessions” in which, much like Salem’s 1692-3 trials, personal grudges were avenged through bloody torture and accusations of demonic witchcraft. Russell positively luxuriates in the sacrilegious fury unleashed by his demonically-possessed and sexually-deranged nuns, whose bodies become writhing, flailing, sexualised texts of hysterical fervour and intense power. This sense of untamed and raw physicality let loose into uncontrollable outbursts of compulsive behaviour resonated broadly with my thesis and posed food for thought on some of the more psycho-sexual aspects of visceral physicality versus what one might term asexual stimming.

🔔 Happy New Year! 🔔

I’m officially back from my festive break, and having had the work I was engaged in over the holidays marked with comments- I’m getting ready to start the first full-bore stretch of my research. The draft literature review and short essay on Rain Man that I wrote prompted some very interesting discussion points, and have given me the push I needed to provide you all with the first serious update of the year.

Hopefully, the format of the news below will be easy enough to read and understand for casual observers and clear & modular enough for me to use regularly. Anyway- without further ado, here’s what’s been going on with my thesis!

-David Lothian (Writer/Owner)

HEADLINES
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“APPLICATION SUBMITTED”: Good news from the administrative side of things- I managed to submit my SGSAH funding application on-time and in the best possible permutation of my thesis’s views, ideas, and goals as approved by my supervisors. The latest, I’m delighted to announce, is that it has passed the first hurdle and gone on to be viewed by the FTV Panel (film & TV) with the relevant improvements made based on feedback. More to follow ASAP

“A FRESH PERSPECTIVE”: For my holiday assignment, I was asked to submit a writing sample on a thesis-related topic of my choosing. I worked on a short essay surrounding Dustin Hoffman’s performance of Autism in Rain Man (1988 dir. Barry Levinson) and how it came to quantify the condition and form a template for future representations. Whilst the essay zeroed in on Hoffman’s physical mannerisms and performances of the autistic character, discussion with my supervisors prompted a reevaluation of the film’s politics from the perspective of supporting characters who are, arguably, just as exaggerated or functional as Hoffman’s Babbitt. Given how firmly entrenched my views on the film were, this new view opens up a plethora of fresh and exciting readings and directions. More on this as it develops!

“THE IMPORTANCE OF AUTOETHNOGRAPHY”: After feedback from the SGSAH Application and discussions with my supervisors, it’s looking like a good deal more of my thesis will be dedicated to my own experiences of autistic subjectivity and its relation to personal biases, spectatorship, and the ways we understand autistic performance than I first planned. This process is academically referred to as “Auto-ethnography” and, whilst briefly detailed in early plans for the thesis, now looks set to become a much bigger/expansive part of the individuality of my argument. Very pleased with this development, as I feel it gives me a serious head-start in making the overall feel of the thesis unique and hard-hitting.

ADMIN
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“REPURPOSING THE BLOG”: First admin announcement of the year- I’ve decided that it’s a little risky vis-à-vis public visibility and my own workload to be regularly updating a blog in-full at this point in time, and especially in future. For the moment, therefore, I’ve decided to repurpose the blog advertised on this page and my Twitter as a hosting space for the FAQ in my last post, and other general identifiers for newcomers to the thesis: sort of a skim-readable primer on what my work entails. Feedback on this decision would be most welcome!

WHAT I’VE BEEN READING & WATCHING
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For Christmas, my parents very kindly gifted me a DVD of the seminal filmmaking biopic Ed Wood (1994 dir. Tim Burton). A wonderful, affectionate, humorous, and profound movie; it kicked off a pretty infectious fascination with Edward D. Wood Junior- the so-called “worst director ever”. Extremely taken by his ardent love of movies (watching & making) and his obsession with pulp screenwriting, I was desperate to know more and picked up a copy of Rudolph Grey’s equally seminal biography of Wood’s life & career “Nightmare of Ecstasy”. It’s been an absolutely tremendous read and quite possibly one of the best books on film & filmmaking I have ever read! Wood’s ridiculous passion -accented by his clumsy, million-mile-per-hour directorial style- initiated a unique and startlingly honest body of work that is somehow both hilariously awful and tragically brilliant; particularly the early q***r subtexts and micro-budget applications of montage. Watching each of Wood’s movies as and when they are discussed in Grey’s biography has provided a sort of “guided tour” of this schlock auteur’s career, and I now have half the book and four of the films -each with a written review on Letterboxd- under my belt. Wood’s cinematic passion (despite a lack of talent!) is something I feel a very deep connection to, and the application of one’s own subjectivities and life experiences onto genre cinema is not only a fascination of mine but is also set to be a chief concern of this thesis.

I am also currently working my way through Stuart Murray’s “Representing Autism: Culture, Narrative, Fascination” which forms a cornerstone of my research and a founding text on the ways we understand the cultural & media depictions of Autism and neurodivergence from the ground up. Some excellent discussion of Rain Man’s “template” status and a clear, open style throughout that lends itself well to study & evaluation.