| Research + Writings |Manifesto of autosurrealism: Towards a Neurocosmopolitan Reality. In N. Walker (Ed.), Neuroqueer anthology. Autonomous Press [Forthcoming].
Abstract: This paper introduces autosurrealism — a self-directed philosophy and embodied praxis that repurposes the aesthetic and radical spirit of early twentieth-century Surrealism to center the neuroqueer perspective as a transformative mode of being, seeing, and doing in a postnormal world. Drawing on the neurodiversity paradigm and the concept of neuroqueering (Walker, 2021; Yergeau, 2018), autosurrealism is proposed as a site of radical potentiality wherein the normative boundaries between reality and surreality, ability and disability, self and other, dissolve into what Breton (1924) termed "absolute reality." Through an interdisciplinary synthesis of Surrealist theory, neuroqueer scholarship, phenomenology, somatic practice, and liberation philosophy, this paper argues that neuroqueering is inherently surreal, and that Surrealism, in its highest aspiration, is inherently neuroqueer: both constitute acts of creative divergence from neuronormative and heteronormative social scripts toward authentic bodymind expression. Central to this argument is a reconceptualization of stimming — repositioned here not as symptomatic behavior but as a form of psychic automatism, transformative play, and pleasure activism that holds the potential to facilitate expanded states of consciousness. Autosurrealism is further theorized as a process of becoming-neuroqueer: a fluid, ever-evolving creative shaping of the bodymind that enacts Deleuze and Guattari's deterritorialization of the pathology paradigm toward reterritorialization within a neurodiversity framework. Ultimately, this manifesto envisions autosurrealism as a cultural movement oriented toward a neurocosmopolitan reality — a surreality in which difference is not merely tolerated but celebrated as the generative force of collective liberation.
Becoming-Creature: A Neuroqueer Approach to Autistic (re)Animation. In N. Walker & A. Reichart (Eds.), Neurodiversity in Psychotherapy. W.W. Norton & Co. [Submitted for Publication].
Abstract: This chapter proposes a neuroqueer approach to psychotherapy that reimagines autistic embodiment beyond neuronormative frameworks through surrealist aesthetics, depth psychology, and somatic practice. Drawing on a detailed case exploration of an autistic, gender-fluid client (“Mika”), the chapter positions neuroqueering as a process of transformative self-authoring and embodied reanimation. Through the clinical integration of Authentic Movement, stimming, and imaginal inquiry, autistic modes of sensing, moving, and communicating are reframed not as deficits, but as portals to vitality, creativity, and cognitive liberty. Situating neuroqueering (Walker, 2021) alongside Surrealism’s commitment to disrupting normative reality through automatism and the unconscious, the chapter conceptualizes autistic embodiment as a site of radical divergence and becoming. Mika’s engagement with a non-speaking, creaturely self-state illustrates how embodied, non-verbal, and imaginal practices can facilitate shadow integration, re-membering, and the reclamation of authentic autistic being. The chapter argues that a neuroqueer-surrealist therapeutic stance—grounded in relational mutuality, non-pathologizing care, and embodied participation—offers an expanded model of psychotherapy that honors multiplicity, animacy, and non-linear modes of consciousness. Becoming-creature emerges as a liberatory praxis through which autistic and neurodivergent bodyminds may reinhabit and reimagine themselves beyond the constraints of neuronormative “reality.”
Exquisite Corpse: Butoh as Neuroqueer Somatic Technology [In preparation].
Abstract: Exquisite Corpse explores Butoh as a neuroqueer somatic technology that destabilizes normative assumptions about embodiment, consciousness, identity, and agency. Bringing Butoh into dialogue with neuroqueer theory, Surrealism, hydrofeminism (Neimanis, 2012), ecosomatics, and depth psychology, the paper examines how practices of non-intention, sensory attention, and improvisational impulse produce altered states of embodiment in which the boundaries between self and world become porous and unstable. Through concepts such as the “empty body” and Noguchi Taiso’s understanding of the body as a fluid, ecological process, Butoh emerges as a practice of de-patterning: softening culturally imposed movement habits and allowing gesture to arise through sensation, gravity, image, repetition, and involuntary impulse. Situating Butoh alongside Surrealist automatism and neuroqueer forms of movement such as stimming, the paper proposes involuntary and impulsive movement as modes of embodied cognition that rupture normative bodily organization and open onto more fluid, relational, and more-than-human forms of becoming. Rather than reinforcing coherent selfhood, Butoh cultivates states of multiplicity, dissolution, transformation, and creaturely emergence. Positioned between eros and decay, consciousness and unconsciousness, agency and surrender, Butoh becomes a neuroqueer practice of embodied transformation that reimagines the body as a porous ecology, shifting process, and site of continual becoming.