Amy S.F. Lutz

My research locates at the intersection of disability history and bioethics. My specific interest is in the severely intellectually and developmentally disabled, and how this population challenges the social model of disability that is currently ascendant in both academia and advocacy. I am also very interested in representation in both senses of the word: first, who speaks for those who can’t speak for themselves? And second, how do media and other cultural depictions both reflect and shape the changing valence of an unstable diagnosis such as autism? My work engages as well with broader themes in the history of medicine, such as the ontology of diagnostic categories and contested claims of expertise and authority.