Autism and Classical Myth: What I'm currently doing while not blogging yet immersed in writing about 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.

Wednesday, 23 September 2020

What I'm currently doing while not blogging yet immersed in writing about Hercules

I've been visiting this blog a good deal lately - indeed, I've recently re-read pretty well each posting I've out up since I got going in early 2009. But this engagement with my own previous postings hasn't been translating in to creating new posts.

Here's why: I am throwing myself into writing the book I've mentioned in earlier postings. It's a book which introduces then presents a set of lessons using classical myth for autistic children. So, just when I'm working more intensively than ever on the project, I'm quieter than I sometimes am on the blog.

I'm close to finishing a draft of the introduction - currently at 12,298 words. Here's the current version of the first paragraph:

This book – part of the series Our Mythical Childhood – is concerned with a particular kind of “mythical childhood,” an autistic childhood. It is a book which presents a set of activities which are each concerned with classical myth. The second part of the book presents the activities, which are divided into ten lessons. This first part of the book explains the purpose of the lessons, what they focus on and why they take this focus. I spend quite a bit of time giving the background for two key reasons. One is to help any teacher, or other adult, who is interested in using some or more of the lessons, know about the mythological background to the activities. The other key reason is to set out why I have developed the activities.