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, 29 March 2023

Autism Acceptance Week Wednesday - some midweek updates and the link for the talk mentioned in yesterday's posting

 Today, I'm writing a shorter posting a I'll be out for a chunk of the day, computer-less, writing a first draft of a chapter of a book [on women of ancient Athens - a subject perhaps for a future posting, not least as writing this book is giving me a new perspective on what it means to approach classics autistically...].

As the week goes on, I'll share some updates on what's happened since I put out a Call for Members on an email list for classicists on Monday. I'm also going write - I think - about what it means to be in an autism 'acceptance' week rather than an 'awareness' week as previously. And I'm worried that in the post to the classicists list, I wrote 'awareness' - the post is out there, as responses tell me, but hasn't come into my inboxes...

For today, here is the link to the recording of the talk I mentioned yesterday on my autism and classical myth project. The image on the first slide looks like a saucepan I'm thinking:

Here is a screenshot showing the talk in the context of the YouTube channel as it's currently looking:

And here's the link to the recording

More tomorrow!


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