Date of Award
5-8-2026
Major
Psychology & Communication Studies
Faculty Advisor
Pensoneau-Conway, Sandy
Abstract
This thesis examines how autoethnographic performance can function simultaneously as public pedagogy and disability advocacy through the analysis of Autism in Real Life, a solo performance created and staged at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. Drawing from performance studies, psychology, sociology, and disability studies, the project explores how embodied storytelling communicates autistic lived experience to audiences unfamiliar with autism. The performance combines narrative, humor, direct audience address, visual media, and accessibility-centered theatrical design to move beyond clinical representations of autism and toward a relational understanding grounded in neurodiversity and the social model of disability.
Using an autoethnographic performance methodology, this thesis analyzes the development, structure, staging, and audience reception of the production. Particular attention is given to masking, sensory processing, stigma, institutional barriers in higher education, and the pedagogical potential of live performance. The project argues that performance creates opportunities for audiences to encounter autistic experience affectively and relationally rather than solely through diagnostic language or stereotype. Audience responses, post-show conversations, and talkback discussions suggest that the performance fostered increased understanding of autism, encouraged reflection on accessibility and neurodiversity, and created moments of recognition for autistic viewers. Ultimately, this thesis positions performance as a form of embodied scholarship capable of reshaping public understandings of autism while foregrounding autistic self-representation, relational ethics, and advocacy through lived experience.