Autism and Classical Myth: February 2021

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.

Tuesday, 16 February 2021

RuPaul, Enid Blyton and beyond: UR Pride and Our Mythical Childhood present.... a 'Show and Tell' of classical and LGBT+ themed works for children and Young Adults

I'm not sure how often RuPaul and Enid Blyton have appeared side by side...

In one of my postings before Christmas, I mentioned that, owing to how well the show and tell sessions that ran during the autumn went, I was planning further ones. Each of the atumn events involved co-action between the University of Roehampton and the Our Mythical Childhood project, firstly for Black History Month and secondly for Roehampton's International Week.

I am now hosing another event - next week - as part of the programme of events for LGBT+ History Month.

Our event, the "Showcase" highlighted yellow in the poster above, starts at 1pm UK time on Tuesday 23 February.

Tomb Raider's Lara Croft -
2013 reboot

Works to be showcased include Tomb Raider and RuPaul's Drag Race UK. Books on showinclude Dean Atta's, The Black Flamingo, Cynthia Voigt's, The Vandemark Mummy, O dziewczynce, która chciała być chłopcem - a 1980s book about a girl who wants to be a boy - and Enid Blyton's Tales of Ancient Greece.

We will be joined - via a specially-created video - by the author J.L. Pawley, who will talk about her Generation Icarus trilogy.

Those showing and telling include: Emily Booth (New England), Robin Diver (Birmingham), Liz Hale (New England), Sarah Hardstaff (Cambridge), Katarzyna Marciniak (Warsaw) and Nanci Santos.

All welcome - as are further suggestions of show and tell items! Email me (s.deacy@roehampton.ac.uk) for the Zoom link...