Amelia Cruz
Pronouns she/her/hers
Email ameliacr@usc.edu
Education
BA English Literature and Women’s and Gender Studies, Rutgers University–New Brunswick, 2020
Research
Amelia’s research focuses on the stories that compose the concept of autism as a way of being. Because there is no empirical or biological means of diagnosing it, autism is, in the words of John Duffy and Rebecca Dorner, an “essentially narrative condition.” While medical experts are on the hunt for an empirically provable cause or a watertight set of diagnostic criteria for autism spectrum disorder (ASD), Amelia’s research interrogates the motivations and effects of psychiatric taxonomies. Her work muddies the boundary between the scientific and the literary, acknowledging...