Deanna Koretsky

Through case studies drawn from Gothic literature and horror film, this book examines how dominant narratives of autism in Europe and the U.S. emerged alongside, and continue to sustain, white supremacist social projects. In an era marked by rising state-sponsored racism and ableism, "Bad Blood and Monstrous Minds" excavates historical intersections and tensions between discourses of neurodivergence and race. With particular attention to the vampire as a recurring motif that registers how autistic ways of being are misunderstood within normative regimes of meaning, the project demonstrates how anti-autism clinical frameworks, political rhetorics, and public sentiments have been tethered to racist narratives about immigration, assimilation, and national identity since the nineteenth century.