On World Autism Day 2025: ‘sensory exaggeration’, Ellie Mackin Roberts, and how scholarship, like autism, is a way of being

On this World Autism Day, I am having my cake and eating it by contributing to a pattern where people:

a)    stress that autism is not just about a day, and 

b)    write about autism on that day. 

 

I have done it before. I will likely continue to do it. 

 

I didn’t do it last year on this blog. But, while talking about ancient Greek dance and religion at a seminar paper in Athens on World Autism Day (April 2^nd 2024), I found myself unexpectedly speaking about how deeply my research into this topic is autism-informed. 

Stones and poppies on the Akropolis on the morning of April 2nd, 2024.

I focused particularly on Dance Movement Therapy which, in the words of the Association For Dance Movement Psychotherapy UK:

is an empathic creative process practiced as individual and group therapy in clinical, community, and educational settings, as well as in private practice.

The clients in question are often autistic people. 

I reflected on the potential for Dance Movement Therapy to offer new ways to understand how ancient people experienced living in their bodies and how they thought about their relationship with others. These others might include, I considered, their fellow dancers. They could have also included, I suggested, the god for whom they danced - and whom they may have impersonated or even become for the period of the dance.

That was last year. But it will also be something that I pick up later this year when I talk further on the topic in Coimbra, at the upcoming Celtic Conference in Classics, at a panel organised by Laurialan Reitzammer and by someone who I want to shout out about this World Autism Day: Ellie Mackin Roberts.

 

Ellie has reflected on discovering that she is autistic: 

I am autistic, and I’m the same person I was before I knew that – but I feel like now I have the right version of the manual for my brain, and I get to figure out all the things that felt and seemed wrong over the years.

She has also reflected on how autism shapes her practice as an ancient Greek historian. Indeed, in her words:

frankly – I think my acceptance and exploration of my autistic brain makes me a better academic anyway.

A recent example bearing out these reflections is one of her recent publications, an article titled ‘The Cave of Laughlessness, sensory deprivation, and cognitive depletion at Eleusis’. 

 

It is a publication that I knew about some time before it was published due to my role as the editor of the journal where it is published: The Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies (BICS). In this role, I oversaw the article’s publication, from initial discussions with its author to its appearance in the 70^th anniversary issue. 

 

[An aside: I should at some point reflect on how autism connects my practice as an editor.]

 

In the article, available here and here, Ellie opens up new ways to understand what it would have been like to experience the intense sensory and emotional states created by the initiation rituals of the Eleusinian Mysteries.

 

Here is the abstract: 

This article explores the intersection of sensory perception, emotional experience, and ritual practice within the ancient Eleusinian Mysteries, specifically focusing on the ‘Cave of Laughlessness’. The author offers a unique perspective on sensory exaggeration, highlighting the heightened awareness of sensory input. The study delves into the experiential aspects of the Mysteries, considering the cognitive and emotional states induced by the rituals. By investigating the sensory manipulation, emotional engagement, and cognitive depletion experienced by initiands (those candidates for initiation), the article sheds light on the complex interplay of sensory experiences and religious significance. The discussion emphasizes the role of the Cave of Laughlessness as a liminal space crucial in the initiatory journey. It examines the sensory and emotional impact it had on ancient worshippers. Through a multidisciplinary approach encompassing archaeology, neurology, and history, this article contributes to a deeper understanding of the sensory dimensions of religious practices in antiquity, offering insights into the ancient mystical experience and its enduring emotional resonance.

In the article, Ellie discusses her experiences on entering a cave at the archaeological site of Eleusis in Attica in Greece in 2023. What she experienced there was, she shares, shaped by the state of 'exaggerated sensory awareness’ or even ‘sensory exhaustion’ she was experiencing (emphasis in original) on a burning July day after a ‘hot, erratic bus journey’.

The Parthenon: April 2nd, 2024

She felt, she explains, an instance of ‘sensory exaggeration’ (her term – a super one):

My embodied experience of what I am feeling and sensing is – as the term suggests – exaggerated and lingering’.

Here, as on other occasions, she continues to describe, 'sounds, smells, touches, tastes stay with me’. Indeed, ‘sensations remain even after a stimulus has been removed'.

This experience, she reflects, may have given her a perspective that others might have missed:

[M]y ‘atypical’ neurocognition let me experience an exaggerated sense […] that an Allistic visitor to the site may have missed or discounted as unimportant’.

Each time I read Ellie’s article, I experience an ‘aha moment’ – where the ancient world remains other and yet where ancient lived experiences can be glimpsed or imagined by autistic academics, even though they can never be known. As Ellie writes:

Shifts in the sensory landscape […] alter the experience of that landscape, manipulating our thoughts and emotional responses. In many ways, this mimics our ability to understand ancient people: we can theorise but can never accurately access their thoughts, feelings and sensory experiences.

I warmly recommend the article. I’ve quoted just some of its beautiful reflections here, and barely touched on its discussion of Eleusis, the cave and its place within the wider religious and cultural lives of ancient Greek people.

 

Reflecting on one’s research processes as an academic, for example in a blog, is often set in opposition to article-writing. It is usual for an article solely to reflect the end product of an author’s research, stripped of any sharing of the processes, and struggles even, that got it to the point of publication. 

 

Ellie’s article, meanwhile, shows the potential of dissolving that binary between lived experiences and research dissemination. The experiences of the academic shape the final findings. The findings are part of a researcher’s lived experiences. 

 

Scholarship, like autism, is a way of being.

 

Happy World Autism Day!

 

 

And the monster is...

In my previous post, I announced a turn in this blog away from a hero, Hercules, to a monster. I said that I would be using the monster in question to explore a particular problem.

That problem, as I said, is the one posed by what is known as Double Empathy Theory where - well here's how I put it last month:

• How neurotypical people feel, communicate, and how their minds work can bewilder autistic people
• The sensory experiences, knowledge and modes of communication of autistic people can be hard to grasp by anyone who is not autistic  

So... I outlined the problem, albeit briefly, in the previous post. However, at that point, I held back from naming the monster.

 

The monster is...

... one who - I'm going to contend - can facilitate a dialogue between the two ways of being. This monster is a mythological entity and symbol whose cultural significance, humanity and way of being can - I shall seek to show - help in the move to open up a more emphatic future. 

For the monster is...

Mosaic in the National Archaeological Museum in Madrid, sourced from Wikimedia Commons here

...MEDUSA!

 

I predict that: if Medusa is read though an autistic prism, then the understanding of autism as a distinctive way of being can be furthered, with implications for nurturing mutual empathy between autistic and neurotypical people.

 

I’m planning to frame this new step in my autism and myth project around the acronym ‘M-E-D-US-A’ where:

 

• M is for Monster
• E is for Education
• D is for Dimensions
• US is for ‘Ourselves
• A is for Antiquity

Here are some of the questions I intend to ask via M-E-D-US-A:

 

Monster: which principles of monstrosity underpin the intensity and chaos evoked in depictions of Medusa and other monsters?

 

Education: what characteristics of a monstrous pedagogy – including a pedagogy that is created around the experiences and cognition of one that is ‘monsterized’ – might frame a series of activities exploring autistic ways of being?

 

Dimensions: which dimensions of autism, and which facets of the emerging field of Neurodiversity Studies and the more established, though still emerging, field of Disability Studies - in conversation with other academic fields – can frame a study of the various layers of divergence conveyed in representations of Medusa? 

 

US: how might the many Medusas of contemporary culture inform a study of autistic cognition and experiences? 

 

Antiquity: how might the Medusa of ancient representations offer new ways to understand ancient concepts of what it is to experience phenomena differently from dominant norms?

  

If these questions read as though they should be in a funding proposal rather than a blog, that is because they have been adapted pretty well word for word from exactly that - from an application I made to a research council a while back. 

That application came close to succeeding - it got to the final stage, helped presumably by the reviews from the expert advisors. Those advisors enthused about the project in terms of its vision and feasibility. They also wrote encouragingly about myself as the right person to conduct the research.

It was a bold proposal where I was upfront about how the research was to be curiosity-driven and multifaceted. I was upfront, too, about the potential for unplanned aspects which might lead to unforeseen outcomes.

Its goals were ambitious. It was to be a project about the intriguing figure of Medusa. It was to be more than that too. It would have sought to map out an innovative approach to culture with implications for understanding human nature and society in fresh ways.

I still hope to secure funding. And this year - 2025: a year of Medusa?! - I intend to show, via this blog, why I plan to keep trying. 

Who picks the apple? The hero or... something else? Announcing this blog's monstrous turn

Who picks the apple from the tree at the world's end? Is it the hero, or... something else?

For around half the time this blog has been around, it has had a particular focus. This has been around Hercules, a figure who, I have been setting out, can resonate with what it is like to be autistic.

I’m not going to be leaving Hercules behind. The blog will continue to look for this hero as he wanders along his roads. It will look for him too as he pauses at the crossroads, caught between the enticements of pleasure and the demands – themselves potentially pleasurable – of hard work.

 

But I am also going to be moving towards a focus on a different figure, one as different - perhaps - as it possible to get from a hero, and yet who can resonate with an aspect of what it is to be a hero. For I shall be turning towards a monster.

Tree with Apples by Salvör Gissurardóttir sourced from Wikimedia Commons here

It might be the case that some people reading this blog will be able to guess who this figure is in light of a few talks I’ve given to date, over the past year or so. But I’ll hold off sharing who the figure is for now. Instead, for the rest of this current post, I’ll start with a problem that I began considering in my work on Hercules, namely that it can be difficult for neurotypical and neurodivergent people to ‘get’ one another.

 

This is a huge problem, one that runs to the heart of culture and human society. It is a problem with implications for the study of the human past and present. How the problem is addressed has implications for human futures too. 

It is a problem that grows out of two distinct ways of (human) being – each distinctive, each different and each radically hard to understand by the other. For the problem concerns a split in what it is to be human due to two distinct ways of being: 

 

• One is a neurodivergent way of experiencing the world, that is: of having a mind that functions differently from the dominant norms. 
• The other is a neurotypical way of being, that is: of conforming to dominant neurocognitive functions. 

The problem generated by these ways of being involves the barriers that are set up, where each differs so radically from the other that mutual understanding can be difficult. 

 

• On the one hand, as expressed in the Double Empathy Theory proposed by the autistic academic Dr Damian Milton of the Tizard Centre at the University of Kent, the sensory experiences, knowledge and modes of communication of autistic people can be hard to grasp by anyone neurotypical. 
• On the other hand, as also expressed by this Theory, how neurotypical people feel, communicate, and how their minds work can bewilder autistic people.

This blog will be sharing my investigations into what happens with these two ways of being connect in the imaginative space of classical mythology.

 

It will explore the problem though the figure of whose identity I shall disclose in the next post. More soon...

Snakes, rivers, launching the book and conferencing in Herculean spaces - some notes on my time in Warsaw in May 2024

When I last posted to this blog, I was looking forward to a key milestone: the launch of my book in the cafe Life is Cool in Warsaw where, on two previous occasions, formative things had happened. The book is now launched! 

The Thames beneath the clouds looking metallic and serpentine as my return flight was descending towards Heathrow. Snakes and other aspects of nature feature in other photos and reflections...

When my outgoing flight broke through the clouds and there was Poland - including the Vistula

I have been back for a couple of weeks and miss Warsaw ...because of the intensity and collegiality of my time there immersed in classical myth and youth culture, because of how simply lovely the city is, and because I made so many autism-linked connections. 

One thing that made May in Warsaw lovely - the Linden trees

The mythology of Warsaw is siren- and mermaid-rich, as the presentations from the High School students I mention below brought out. But there is also this duck, whose golden story would make for an activity linked with autism and myth further down the road...

 In my room in Hotel Gromada about to head out on my first evening in Warsaw

These connections included with the staff member at the cafe who kindly received a copy of my book on behalf of Life is Cool and with the translator for the launch whose insights into myth, symbolism, connecting across divides and, indeed, snakes, was inspirational. Then there was the 'rite of passage' of being interviewed by Lisa Maurice about the book and what led to it, and the activity I set for those present - which they engaged with in ways that took me aback. This I shall report on once the I have properly been through the artworks they produced.

There were other moments too, including meeting neurodivergent and other students from a High School in Warsaw both in their actual classroom and at the conference.

One of the statues of the imposing venue of the second day of the conference at the University of Warsaw with Hercules leaning on his club on the wall behind. I began the day overwhelmed by the room and ended up happy there after I sketched one of the statues and found myself listening in a different kind of way to the presentations

With Hercules just after I was unexpectedly filmed talking my book and my lesson for the Modern Argonauts project on the first morning of the conference

The launch was recorded. I'll share the link here when it is ready. I'll also share photographs that were taken during the launch and the conference that followed. As a taster, here are a few that I have access to on my phone.

Also - if you click the QR code on the poster for the launch in my previous posting, you get taken to the publisher's site of for the book, which includes the link to the Open Access pdf version...

Announcing the launch of my 'Herculean' book for autistic children in Warsaw on Tuesday 21 May!

Come early spring of 2020, I was all set to head for a week or so to Warsaw. The flight was booked. I knew where I'd be staying. I was excited about a visit to Arcadia, a myth-rich 18th century landscape garden. I think I even had my meals all chosen. Then the world changed.

But... in a few days' time I'm finally returning - for a week of workshops and meetings and a conference where, among colleagues I have now been collaborating with for several years, I shall be discussing classics and youth culture, and where I shall be heading to Life is Cool, a cafe staffed by autistic people, for the launch of my book of lessons for autistic children based on Hercules's choice. 

There will informal formalities and there will activities. I'll keep these a surprise for now, but let me say that the session will involve exploring Hercules between the competing demands of 'hard work' and 'pleasure' via a mechanical device for children on a classical theme that I bought at an exhibition in London last week.

Here is the flyer!

In the labyrinth with Cora Beth Fraser and other attendees at a University College Dublin classical seminar during Autism Month 2024

I ended my previous posting promising further information about what I've been up to during Autism Month 2024 - including concerning a talk I attended by Cora Beth Fraser on autism, classics and labyrinths. Here is this promised information about the talk: as written in my notebook on 24th April and now typed up several days later, while we're still just about in Autism Month, i.e. April.

Labyrinth with Minotaur at the centre on a gem from the Medici Collection in the Palazzo Strozzi in Florence. In keeping with the classical tradition, the Minotaur is part-human and part bull and yet, inverting this tradition, it is the top half that is human and the bottom half bull. What this means I am still trying to process. Sourced from Wikimedia Commons here.

Earlier this week [my 24th April self wrote], I zoomed into an online session at University College Dublin by Cora Beth Fraser on autism, classics and labyrinths. Cora stressed the timeliness of her talk as one taking place during Autism Month. She discussed what it means for the Month to have moved from an 'Awareness' to an 'Acceptance' One when creating awareness is still worth doing, not least in academia.

For in academia, Cora Beth suggested, there might be particular numbers of autistic people. And more specifically, she mooted, numbers of neurodivergent people who are also classicists might be especially high.

Why might this be the case?! 

As Cora Beth shared, it's here that the labyrinth image comes in. It comes in for a range of reasons, including the mythological significance of Asterion, the Minotaur, and the relevance of the labyrinth as an image of autism. For as some (neurodivergent?) people might see it, the labyrinth evokes somewhere an autistic person is shut away - for their own protection and/or the protection of others. But then there is the image of the labyrinth as evoking autistic ways of being and of negotiating the world. Looked at in this way, the labyrinth is not so much a prison as somewhere reassuring - somewhere that is, for example, full of corners to shelter behind.

Cora Beth brought in the relevance of this way of seeing the labyrinth and its original inhabitant, the Minotaur, to the 'autistic headcanon'. This is a game where neurodivergent people share how they see themselves in particular characters from myth, fantasy or literature more broadly. Cora Beth proposed the Minotaur as one such character. The fit with what I have been trying to do with Hercules, and what I plan to try with Medusa, is exciting, and Cora Beth said nice things about the part of my book where I propose this.

How Cora Beth conducted the talk - in dialogue with attendees via the zoom chat - was amazing. I have said before that one thing that I welcomed during Lockdown was the opportunity zoom chat provided to keep me feeling connected. It also let me deal with the anxiety of being in a talk yet remote from it. Plus it allowed for sharing ideas. 

It still does... 

This time, the sense of communality that was created led me to ask - playfully, but with seriousness behind it - whether we could all meet every week to talk labyrinths etc.

More soon on the talk (I've only scratched at the surface of what Cora Beth said) and related things...

Athena, being autistic and Dance Movement Therapy - and how these connected in Athens on International Autism Awareness Day 2024

Over the past few years, I have put out postings on - and for - international autism day/week/month: sometimes whole series of postings. Here is a sample one. I have done this while seeking to convey that autism - a way of being - is not just about a specific period of time. It's always. But I have also noted that this time in March-April allows an opportunity to reflect and share. 

On this year's Autism Day, I was in Athens. I should perhaps write a posting on this visit as it had a deep impact on me, including as I sat - for probably two hours - in my special place on the slopes of Mount Lykavittos as the light went down over the city.

On Mount Lykavittos - the rock in Athens dropped by Athena as the ancient local myth went

I was in Athens to give a paper at the Swedish Institute at Athens' ancient religion seminar on Athena as a dancer. This paper was extending research I've done over some years - well decades - into Athena by looking at dance and other types movement connected with this deity. 

Title slide of my presentation at the Swedish Institute - when I write up the paper, the content of the images should become apparent

What I had found as I was preparing the paper - as I had when I gave an earlier version at a conference in Coimbra last year - was just how far my research has been informed by what I have been doing on autism and classical myth. 

On the one hand, this is because everything I do is shaped by a neurodivergent way of looking at ancient evidence, as I have been increasingly realising over the years. 

It is also because of the paper's specific content. For what I proposed was an approach to ancient dance that is informed by Dance Movement Theory. 

This is a theory - and practice - that can be used by, and with, anyone whether neurodivergent or neurtypical. However, as with Dramatherapy (which I've written about previously on this blog, beginning here) there is particular potential for connecting with autism: for example, as a means for autistic people to explore autistic minds and bodies, and to open up new ways to envisage the body in space and how movement and cognition correlate. 

Slide from my presentation in Athens on Dance Movement Therapy as defined by the Association for Dance Movement Psychotherapy UK

As I was giving the paper, I stressed that I was very much just getting going with my research. I wondered, too, whether, as someone who is very much not qualified in Dance Movement Therapy, I should be doing anything more than expressing my curiosity about what it entails. 

Then something happened in the question time straight after the paper that made me think again.

I often find transitioning from a paper I've delivered to the discussion hard - I have given my all. I am exhausted. Answering specific questions can be a challenge. But one of the questions this time - from someone present online (this was a hybrid session) - turned out to be from someone whose connections with the topic floored me: in a good way.

For one thing, she explained that she studied at Roehampton, the university where I am now an emeritus professor and whose artefacts have been key to my autism work culminating to date here. More than this, she shared that she is a Dance Movement Therapist. There is more still: she explained that is a member of a Non Profit Organisation called the Athena Foundation.

So there was me arguing for Athena to be explored in relation to Dance Movement Therapy when Dance Movement Therapists already see the potential of Athena to encapsulate the therapy.

I am hoping that we will be able to connect! Watch this space: hopefully...

Soon I'll share other experiences during Autism Month, including a SUPERB paper I zoomed into by Cora Beth Fraser on autism, classics and labyrinths last week...