Last month was a super-active one for me including where autism-linked and myth-linked – and autism-and-myth-linked - activities are concerned. I’ve been involved in so many activities that it’s been hard to do what I like to, namely to reflect on events via this blog.
Today,
though, I am going to make a start with an activity that took place in two
stages – for a panel at the latest conference of the Children’s History
Society Conference held, via Zoom, at Manchester Metropolitan University, organised
by Dr April Pudsey.
The event’s theme was “Children and Young People Speaking Out”. The panel I was on, “Children with Special Needs: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Agency and Autonomy,” concerned what it means for autistic children to speak – including to speak out – via classical myth.
My contribution was a joint one with Prof. Lisa Maurice, with whom I’ve had quite a few joint projects of late. While the conference took place 17-19 June, Lisa and I met to record our contribution in advance, earlier in June. It’s the first time I have taken part in an event where the live part takes place to discuss recordings circulated beforehand – and it was a special experience recording the session with Lisa.
I ran though initiatives on my part creating – and trying out – activities for autistic children based around the figure of Hercules. I talked about the inception of my Hercules project in the context of interests in myth and in autism - and I shared examples of the resources for activities as well as information about one of the sessions and some examples of workshops I have hosted.
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| In the Adam Room at the University of Roehampton with school students from the "Class of 2020' looking at Hercules choosing on an 18th century panel |
Lisa, then, ran through the work she has done – informed by, and in turn informing – mine in collaboration with her colleagues at Bar-Ilan University, including Dr Ayelet Peer.
Some of the slides from my part of the presentation accompany this posting as images, and the video will be available - I'll share it in due course.
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| Hard Work, Hercules and Pleasure - high-quality drawing by Steve Simons of a chimneypiece panel in the Adam Room at Roehampton - the key focus of the activities I was discussing at the conference |
Perhaps in part because I hadn’t just given a presentation and so was ‘fresh,’ meeting specifically for discussion worked better, than, for instance the discussion - as I remember it at least - after a paper I gave on the autism activities at the University of Reading for the series “Making Classics Better” in April. We’ll see – that session’s recording is out, and I’ll share it via this blog and via ACCLAIM once I’ve watched it through.
The discussion at the Children’s History Conference panel included consideration of complex emotions and how special interests and skills have a fit with mythological heroes. And we ended – ended because our break-out room closed; we could have continued for longer – with reflections that picked up on a point I’d made concerning how autistic people can find classical myth appealing when they are able to see aspects that reasonate with themselves in characters and scenarios.
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| The Adam Room scene as coloured and captioned by Anna Mik at an autism and myth workshop |
Comments
about the session include this one
and this
one.
I also carried on threads of discussion afterwards with people who’d been at the session, including on the topic of girls and autism and the figure plans I have for activities including other mythological figures – starting with one I have been considering for years now – Medusa.
I shall pause for now and aim to blog later on this summer to refection other things I’ve been up to as well as fresh things that come up…