About

What CNS does

Neurotypicality is rarely named, yet it shapes how knowledge is produced, how social life and institutions are organised, who counts as a legal person, what cultural forms look like, and how scholarship itself is done. CNS makes that norm visible so it can be examined. It treats neurodivergence as both a structurally produced position and a generative way of knowing, with aesthetic, sensory and ethical dimensions of its own.

Where CNS sits

CNS is in conversation with the neurodiversity paradigm, critical disability studies and mad studies, and is not a subcategory of any of them. From the neurodiversity paradigm it takes the recognition that there is no normal brain, and goes further in asking how diagnostic categories are produced historically and culturally. From critical disability studies it takes the insight that institutions discipline minds as well as bodies, and adds attention to the experience of thinking differently.

The framework is organised by the matrix of neuronormativity, and its full vocabulary is set out in the Taxonomy of Terms, which is the place of record for CNS terms.

Who developed it

Critical Neurodivergent Studies was developed by Tess Ezzy, a PhD candidate at the University of New England, who directs the Neurodivergent Creative Methods Lab. Her work sits at the intersection of neurodivergence, literary and cultural studies, and the critical study of institutions. The Lab, established in 2025, is the institutional home of CNS.

Using this site

The Taxonomy defines every CNS term, with a provenance line and citation for each. Projects lists work in progress and Publications lists work in print. Methods sets out how CNS reads and researches, and The Lab covers who takes part and how. The Blog carries notes on terms as they develop, new publications and calls for papers.

Citing CNS