Title: Earthlove – Theorising Neurodivergent Reader Love of A Room Called Earth

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper is a neuroqueer reading of the novel A Room Called Earth (2020) by Madeleine Ryan. In the paper, we explore and theorise a neuroqueer reading practice. Ryan’s novel depicts a neurodivergent experience of life and the world, through a neurodivergent literary form and style. Reading as neurodivergents, the content and the form melt together – it is more than ‘literary style’, it is a way of existing. This reading, and our writing about our reading, is not neutral. It is an engaged and personal reading, where we let our reading subjects fuse with the text. Important in our neuroqueer reading practice is the context of reading and writing. In the article, we explore how sharing our readings in a neurodivergent collective opens up an understanding of the world, the text, and ourselves, which works both as a healing process and sharing of experiences of sensory desires. We argue that the neurodivergent experience is different when experiences as a collective rather than individual experience – the feelings of reading, becomes when shared, something more and other. Earthlove is, through our reading, an experience of sensory/textual desire, and neurodivergent collective acts of love and self-love. Reading it feels like love.