Autism and Classical Myth: What I'm doing today, tomorrow and later this month including participating in an autism and mythical hope panel tomorrow at the Israel Society for the Promotion of Classical Studies conference...

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, 1 June 2021

What I'm doing today, tomorrow and later this month including participating in an autism and mythical hope panel tomorrow at the Israel Society for the Promotion of Classical Studies conference...

For a while, in the early years of this blog, there would be periods of non-blogging from me. These silences often reflected the progress I was making with autism and classical myth - that is, that there wasn't much, or at least not much I could put into words. In recent times, and this is one such, when I go quiet, it is often because I have been busy preparing activities, events, articles etc - even now a book - linked with the topic.

Page 1 of the Israel Society for the Promotion of Classical Studies conference,
including the Mythology of Hope panel - the red, including for my paper, denotes
virtual presentation... Screenshot captured as best I can manage after several attempts
each of which worked less well than this one!

Today, my key task is to prepare a paper for a classics conference in Israel tomorrow where I shall talk about my project as part of a panel on autism and classics - and how classical topics can resonate with autistic children, and how this engagement can be demonstrated by activities in Israel (by my fellow panellists) and the UK (by me).

I shall be zooming in while my fellow, Israel-based, speakers will be there in person. I shall use this blended format as an opportunity to say some things about the possibility for 'remote' activities for autistic children. Such activities need not, I shall consider, be a second best, but might offer a means of enjoying and exploring being autistic - through ways that in in-person activities cannot allow.

Before I get stuck into the paper, I shall be attending - at Roehampton, but again via Zoom - a planning meeting for a possible bid that might include an autistic dimension. I shall also be doing other activities in preparation for upcoming events including a panel in the middle of this month at this year's Children's History Society conference - again via Zoom. And I shall be preparing for a talk I shall be giving soon, with two Roehampton students - though Zoom again - during this year's University of Roehampton Learning and Teaching Festival. This presentation will be on the placements the students have been doing with the Our Mythical Childhood project, including around autism and mythology.

I shall also be doing some followups to an ACCLAIM Network event last week - which was too wonderful to share easily here (so more will follow), and I shall be starting to look though the proofs that arrived yesterday for a chapter on Hercules and autistic "hope" for a volume coming out of the "Mythical Hope" stage of the Our Mythical Childhood project.

This sounds like quite a lot - and I've missed out a couple of things - and if this posting reads as a little breathless, that reflects how I'm envisaging the day. I'm going to get started now...