also writing an essay that can be summed up with the excerpts i'll quote here:

"Within the setting of an institution, ableist violence and abuse is excused with ease through dehumanization. Autistics are seen as quasi-human, beings with human-like traits that fall just short of the allistic definition of humanity. We are seen as unsuccessful in communicating with other people, but instead merely fail to communicate in a manner the allistic can easily understand on a consistent basis. A theory known as the 'double empathy problem' has been studied and explained in an article for Frontiers for Young Minds as a tangible means of explaining the seemingly cyclical misunderstanding between autistics and allistics (Crompton et al., 2021). This theory is crucial to the link between the 'innocent monster' archetype and the experience of an autistic person in allistic society: The tragedy of an existence meant only to be misunderstood and reviled. A cry of pain is heard as a threatening roar by others, and all parties prolong their suffering through this miscommunication.

The first chapter of this essay will focus on illustration of both the innocent monster and the double empathy problem in action. The following chapters will be thematically based on each of Cohen’s seven theses in monster theory, selecting a specific innocent monster as a case study to best illustrate each postulate either explicitly or implicitly. I must stress here that each monster discussed in this essay is merely a means of illustrating tendencies mimicked through real-world parallels, be they intentional or not; this is not a praise of the depictions of these traits as monstrous nor is it a condemnation of the depiction of these traits at all."

Vol. 3 of the Journal of Gods and Monsters is out:

https://godsandmonsters-ojs-txstate.tdl.org/godsandmonsters/issue/view/3?fbclid=IwAR3UGgi9OMRa6scaJZ7sWA1yH1PXg7x_CzyTVfcZ1fIv-H85Qo3yfs2aPJU

#monstertheory #ghosthunting #lovecraft #bataille #religion #journal #openaccess