Autism and Classical Myth: Showing and telling children's classical culture

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.

Monday 22 June 2020

Showing and telling children's classical culture - from the Dark Side of the Catalogue

Last summer, I took part in a classical myth 'for' children Show and Tell in Cardiff and shared some responses via this blog on the things that came out of the day that bore in some way on my autism and classical myth work. I ended with this comment:

"Karen Pierce, who organised the show and tell, will be blogging on it. I'll link to her posting once it's out."

It's out!

It's my pleasure to link to Karen's posting, on her Dark Side of the Catalogue blog. As illustrations, and to whet your appetite, here are two of the photos in the posting - which capture different aspects of the day. In one, one of the participants shares an artefact from her own mythical childhood. In the other, you'll see an eighteenth-century child's very personal inscription in a classical book.

Karen's posting also includes reflections on the kind of event that is able to happen thanks to lockdown, the Hay on Wye festival which took place online - with mythological content - this year.

Till the next Show and Tell..!