Autism and Classical Myth: The year of Hercules

Why classical myth and autism?

Why classical myth and autism?

The idea for this project started to take shape at a meeting in 2008 with a special needs teacher, who mentioned that, in her experience and those of her colleagues, autistic children often enjoy classical myth. I began to wonder why this might be the case, and whether – as a classicist who researches, and loves, classical myth – there was anything I could contribute. I started this blog to report on my progress which was often sporadic until the launch of the Warsaw-based European Research Council-funded project Our Mythical Childhood (2016-22) to trace the role of classics in children’s culture.

My key contribution to the project is an exploration of classics in autistic children’s culture, above all by producing myth-themed activities for autistic children. This blog shares my progress, often along Herculean paths, including to a book of lessons for autistic children focusing on the Choice of Hercules between two very different paths in life. The image above, illustrating the homepage of this blog, is one of the drawings by Steve K. Simons, the book's illustrator, of a chimneypiece panel in a neoclassical villa at Roehampton in South West London. The lessons centre on this panel.

Friday 5 January 2018

The year of Hercules

It's the year of Hercules. Before I resume my thread begun in my previous two postings (on liberating and before that rescuing Hercules), here are some updates on recent developments that bear out my starting comment.

Just before Christmas, I wrote a posting for Antipodean Odyssey, the blog managed by my Our Mythical Childhood colleague Liz Hale. This was as part of a series of 'Saturnalian Surprises,' where project members outlined something particularly expected that they had encountered in the first year of our collaborations. Mine, published on Boxing Day under the title 'How children teach us about Classics' discussed my surprise at discovering an unexpected reception, by children, of the 'Choice of Hercules' artefact that I've discussed several times already on this, my own, blog.

Then, Sonya and Steve welcomed in 2018 with a new animation where Hercules fires in the New Year. I've only been able to save the opening frame here - if you have access to Sonya on twitter (or to @uorclassics where it was retweeted on 2 Jan) you'll be able to see Hercules in action.

This was just a taster of what Sonya and Steve will be doing this year as part of their Panoply work. And there will be plenty of Herculean content from me over the coming month, starting soon with the third of my three postings introducing my first set of autism resources.