On reading the review of my 2022 conference at Leicester by Emma Astra AKA The Disabled PhD Student

A colleague got in touch recently to ask whether I knew about an article written about a visit I made to the University of Leicester last year to talk about where autism, neurodiversity, disability and classics cross and connect.

I didn't know about it. But when I clicked the link, what I found there floored me, in a wonderful way.

The article is here. 

It's by Emma Astra AKA The Disabled PhD Student. Emma sets out what it was like for her attending the different phases of the day, starting with an informal drop-in, continuing with lunch at a cafe on campus, then having tea and cakes in the foyer of one of the university buildings and finally attending a more formal presentation from myself, though where participants had the option of a colouring in activity.

Space to connect at Leicester University's Percy Gee Building.
Photo Ashley Drake. Sourced from Wikimedia Commons

The article beings with the header: 'How and why I changed my perspective of Greek Tragedy because of Professor Susan Deacy'.

I'm not going to summarise what Emma says because I can't do justice to it. Here, though, are a few points I want to get down - including so that they can serve as actions points for myself:

1. Informal drop-in sessions: these should become a thing!
2. The 'crossroads' image is worth keeping pursuing
3. Opportunities for conversations in non-formal settings like such are worth having. As Emma writes, it's here that 'the most connecting and experience arises'
4. Colouring in is 'therapeutic'. There need to be more colouring in opportunities
5. Hercules can resonate in unexpected ways
6. Emma's medium site and PhD blog are wonderful places
7. So too is the work of Andrew Hugill, author of the Autistic Professor blog 
8. 'Hybrid events are important' for disabled people just as Emma says.

University Road Sign designed by Freepik.
Attribution here

As I mentioned in my previous posting, I am off to Leicester again next week both to look back over the Hercules phase of my practice and to look ahead to what I'm planning concerning Medusa. The crossroads image will be all the more important for me to think through in like of Emma's insights.

On getting to 'every crossroads' in Leicester on November 30th

I'll be heading to one of my academic homes next week, the University of Leicester, to talk about two 'paths' in my autism-related activities to date.

At a workshop at the University, I'll be presenting my - nearly out! - book of lessons for autistic young people based on Hercules. 

Poster for my session at Leicester on November 30th, designed by Dan Stewart

I'll also be introducing my next project, which will pursue a 'Medusan' path. 

Here I shall propose Medusa as a figure who can resonate with autistic ways of being. I'll set out how Medusa does this differently from Hercules, but at least as significantly. I plan to focus on how Medusa fits, notably, with being autistic and:

- self stimulation

- movement

- emotional intensity.

I visited Leicester in September 2022 for a Hercules-focused session which included an (opt-in) interactive activity. I'm planning to same this time round as well.

It's possible to attend online as well as in person. Email the address on the poster above or me via susan.deacy@bristol.ac.uk for information.

It is very likely that I shall be discussing several crossroads-rich images. Here's a taster:

Zbigniew Karaszewski, The Choice of Hercules 4 (2022) based on a 1603 illustration of the constellation by Johann Bayer sourced from Wikimedia Commons 

 

A crossroads on the Zeus Housing Estate in Warsaw photographed by Maria Makarewicz

The cover of my book :)

Anya Laura, Medusa at the Interface Between Science and Arts, from S.Goffredo and Z. Dubinsky (ads.), The Cnidaria, Past, Present and Future: The World of Medusa and her Sisters, Springer 2016: ii

What Would Hercules Do? On why the answer to this question is now imminent - my book is nearly out

I write with news! 

The book of lessons for autistic children that I have mentioned many times over the last few years is very nearly out. It is advertised by the publisher HERE and due out by Christmas. 

It will be available in print form and online (for free, via Open Access!). 

More news as I receive it, but as a taster here, first, is the cover:

And here, secondly, are some endorsements:

Live blogging Hera's Terrible Trap in the Hopeless Heroes series where, TLDR, I'm half way through and taking a pause to process after some experiences to date of Medusa-receptions for young people

I’m now about to start reading Hera’s Terrible Trap, the second book in the Hopeless Heroes series while blogging about it.

Getting ready to take out volume 2 from the box set of Hopeless Heroes by Stella Tarakson 

In the first book, which I blogged about last week, Hera was set up as the enemy of the hero, Tim, as an extension to her enmity for Hercules.

From looking at the cover of the book, Hera is looking set to continue to be put in the role, standard in classical receptions for children I think, of the bitter enemy of Hercules who is dedicated to persecuting him. 

To be fair, there are classical precedents for this in ancient sources including Hesiod, where Hera is responsible for rearing several of the creatures whom Hercules comes up against.

The dedication of the book to the author’s mother, Helen, ‘a migrant who brought her mythology with her’ offers a perspective who it is who ‘owns’ classical mythology which raises some big questions.

The book opens in a garden centre with what it’s like to be a child taken to a garden centre reminds me of own memories of being taking to them. Here, described from the perspective of Tim, the place is full of adults exclaiming delightedly as they look at plants as though they’d never seen any before.

It is due to what happened in the first book, it turns out – nice exposition here – that Tim and his mother are in the garden centre as they need to buy new plants to replace those that Hercules blasted treating them like the (botanical – I loved that!) Hydra.

Tim has grown in confidence since the first book. When he meets the school bully – Leo, the name has to be significant… – at the garden centre he responds to being tripped up by tripping Leo up.

Oh yes on the depiction of Hera as the standard dedicated evil goddess one. She’s the ‘evil goddess’ on page 27 continuing how, at page 8, ever since Hercules had been born, ‘Hera had decided to hate and resent him’ – emphasis added.

There has been some rushed exposition: how Hermes came into the story as the helper of Hera out of fear for her is rehearsed. But now we are I think into the plot of the new adventure when, after Tim returns home to find Hermes flying off in his winged sandals with the ancient Greek vase that Hera desperately wants back, Tim grabs the vase and is transported away holding onto it (p. 30).

He is transported, it turns out, to Hera’s sanctuary in ancient Greece. Preceded by a flock of peacocks – introducing for the readers quite nicely Hera’s sacred birds – Hera appears, asks Tim his name, and reveals – this is great! – that, echoing the meaning of name of Hercules and its connection with Hera (though this isn’t stated here), the name Timothy means ‘Honouring God’ (40).

Tim runs away from Hera’s temple – so while in the first book Hercules was transplanted into the modern world, this time round Tim is going to be transplanted into the world of classical myth. 

In what is a missed opportunity not to evoke this world of classical myth, Tim runs straight into Hercules who takes him to his home and his wife who is called Agatha – in this regard the author is making her own intervention I assume.

I’ve now met Hercules’ daughter, Zoe, and lacking the subtlety of the first book where Tim and his world are gradually evoked, here Hercules thinks girls should stay indoors while Zoe wonders whether, in the future, girls are able to leave home to have adventures. I’m anticipating similar presentism as the book continues.

I’m skimming a bit as this book lacks the subtlety and world-evocation of the first one.

Tim has just met Theseus, who has killed the Minotaur already but whose father is still alive. Theseus – in the role of a self-loving teenager, which is about right I guess - has come to meet Tim having heard on the ‘GGG’ (66) that he needed help. 

I need to turn the page to find out what GGG is going to stand far. I’m going to guess ‘Greek gods something’. Ah – p. 70: ‘Greek God Grapevine’.

Zoe has revealed that this is how gods pass on messages to heroes.

As a take on magical properties of grapevines in ancient sources – as on vases where everyday people seem to have become transported into the realm of Dionysos – this is super.

There’s a nice twist on stories being narrated within stories as in Ovid’s Metamorphosis when Zoe, star struck, asks Theseus, to narrate how he killed the Minotaur and only snippets are given as Tim filters out his arrogant boasting. 

But the rehearsal of the story serves to help Tim decide how to get the vase back as it reminds him of a computer game he used to enjoy playing which was set in a maze.

The three of them – Tim, Zoe and Theseus – go through a garden full of statues that lack the perfect bodies that Tim has become accustomed to seeing. Their faces look scared too, One statue is crying actual tears.

When Tim sees a woman in tattered clothes with snakes for hair coming towards them, Zoe warms him not to look at her, revealing that she is a gorgon. Thanks to the illustration by Nick Roberts on page 89, the reader is shown just what the gorgon looks like with big snaky locks of hair, slanted eyes (!) and large pointed teeth.

Zoe reveals that Hercules has told her about how his grandfather killed a gorgon, Medusa, but that she had failed to listen to how.

But it turns out that the relative, Perseus, Zoe’s great-grandfather, now lives in the gorgon’s garden and tends it contentedly.

I’m half way through and going to pause now. 

Hera's Terrible Trap: half way through

A heads up that it’s when I got as far (about a quarter way in) as Percy Jackson and his (again, two… this is interesting!) friends encountering Medusa that I stopped reading – due to how Medusa is treated.

Another heads-up: last week I was loving reading Show Us Who You Are by Elle McNicoll including for its evocations of the Medusa myth until the end with which I had several issues which made the whole experience unravel.

So I need to take a pause before reading more about what will happen next in the garden.

Announcing Modern Argonauts, a hero for our times, and a 'proof of concept' to help young people deal with challenges of today

I still recall the sense of excitement at the impending launch of Our Mythical Childhood, a five-year continents-wide quest to chart Classical moments in young people's culture. 

Along with the team assembled by Katarzyna Marciniak, we planned extensively, assembled teams and got going. That was in 2016. 

The quest didn't always quite as we had planned, not that this was a bad thing. In the end we not only accomplished all our tasks - we also managed to carry out more than we had dared to dream. Even when Covid left us isolated in our various localities we found other means to connect.

With the end of the project - after six, not five, years, to deal with the challenges of Covid - we found ourselves ready to get going again. 

And right now I'm feeling a new sense of excitement. Katarzyna is now the holder of a 'Proof of Concept' grant from the European Research Council. This is the about to be launched The Modern Argonauts: A Multicultural Educational Programme Preparing Young People for Contemporary Challenges through an Innovative Use of Classical Mythology. 

The hero: Professor Katarzyna Marciniak

Following from the 'citizen science' aspect of the first quest, The Modern Argonauts will continue to bring young people along with us. 

The project will, to quote Katarzyna, explore "antiquity as a living element of contemporary culture, important for the development of the identity of children and young people". 

This "innovative use" of mythology will be an interactive educational programme for young people. 

My contribution will be a Herculean one which builds on the Choice of Hercules activities that I designed for young people for the autistic 'wing' of Our Mythical Childhood.

I will be getting started soon and plan to share my progress here.

In the meantime, for more on the Modern Argonauts, please read this notice from the University of Warsaw, from where the quotation from Katarzyna is taken, and which in turn links to a video about the new project. Please also see this piece on AcademiaNet.

More news to follow too on the Choice of Hercules activities whose publication will take place very soon now. The companion webpages are live and growing, and this very week the book goes to the printer.

ACCLAIM update including new member bios

There's been quite a bit of activity in the ACCLAIM (Autism Connecting CLAssically Inspired Mythology) Network lately including with the new or edited member bios. 

ACCLAIM Members - the link for this site is below: please scroll down

New to the network are following wonderful people, all of whose interests and lives connect - in some way - autism and mythology:

Alexia Dedieu (Grenoble)

Effrosyni Kostara (Athens/Roehampton)

Oisín Parsons (UCD, Dublin)

Aneirin Pendragon (St Andrews)

Jerome Ruddick (Newcastle)

Meanwhile, the bio for David Welch (Texas) has been updated to reflect the two milestones of gaining a PhD and an academic job 🎓🎉

Please check out our bios plus photos showing us in touch with our younger selves and if you'd like to join, send me an email (susan.deacy@bristol.ac.uk)!

Here Comes Hercules - with me live blogging and finding the book as good as it was recommended to be with Hesiodic moments

Around a year ago, I spent a very pleasant afternoon in the Ure Museum of Classical Antiquity with the members of the Reading branch of the YAC: the Young Archaeologists' Club. 

For the session, I adapted one of the lessons from my book of lessons for autistic children based around the figure of Hercules. When I blogged about the session last year,* I mentioned that as well as being very engaged with the figure of Hercules and with the challenges of making sense of this figure as well as other mythological figures, some of the young people recommended to me some reading I could do as a follow up. 

The most enthusiastic suggestion made was that I should read a book in series called Hopeless Heroes on Hercules. The kids seemed quite sad that I didn't yet know this book - or any of its companions. They were excited for me that I could now discover the world it conjures up.

I went ahead and bought the full set. 

Hopeless Heroes series, by Stella Tarakson illustrated by Nick Roberts, Sweet Cherry 2018-2020

Now, finally, I'm reading the books - and I'm going to do something I've done previously. As I read, I'm going to live blog, or at least this is the plan. I've not blogged recently - while I've been focusing on some other projects. I've been missing it.

So here goes volume 1: Here Comes Hercules.

We start in the modern day, presumably in the UK, where a young boy called Tim is alone in the house doing housework while his mother is at her second job as a cleaner. As he starts doing a task that he dislikes doing - dusting - he manages to knock over and break one of the many objects that clutter the house, a large vase. 

What makes the breakage especially unfortunate is that it's the one object that, his mother has told him, is worth anything. Indeed, were she to sell it she wouldn't need to be doing the second job. The thing is: it was a gift from her husband, Tim's father, before he died. 

As Tim contemplates mending the vase, on which a strong man is depicted with a huge bull, he's aware that there's a huge man in the room with me, Hercules, relieved to be released and a bit surprised that Tim doesn't have a clue who he is,

I'm wondering why it's so often Hercules who figures in time travel fiction - either where classical myth intrudes into the modern world or where someone goes back in time. There's Francesca Simon's Helping Hercules for instance. One possibility is the popularity of Hercules, not least in children's culture in the wake of the 1997 Disney film - after which Hercules has never been the same like Barbie presumably never will be the same in the wake of The Barbie Movie. 

Because anything can be made Herculean, here's a picture of Ryan Gosling from Barbie since - helping contribute to Hercules in youth culture in the 1990s - he was Young Hercules.

Ryan Gosling in 2017 - details here

Another possibility could be what it is Hercules does, namely carry out difficult tasks.

Having Hercules explain who he is is a nice way to introduce classical myth to readers who don't 'have' any knowledge as they start reading...

I have to write down this from page 23 between Hercules and Tim: which is beautifully Hesiodic - gods never were, always are...

'My father is lord of the sky and ruler of Mount Olympus', the man said, pulling himself to his full height. 'You must know of him.'

'Mount Olympus? Like in mythology? Greek gods and stuff? [...] They're just stories. They're not real.'

Ooh it's got interesting - channeling something not I THINK in ancient sources for Hercules but a trope used e.g. for Andromeda, Hercules explains that he's been trapped in the vase since Hera put him in there out of jealousy for his mother 'who is far more beautiful than her' (p. 24).

Oh and I've just got to a theme that I think I've seen in children's receptions, namely what is the usefulness of Hercules - Tim says (still 24): 'Flexing muscles and wrestling cattle wouldn't get the housework done'.

Ah very Herculean now - he's realised he is hungry and eating enthusiastically.

And a nice touch at p. 38: Hercules takes to the task of clearing the garden of weeds by decapitating dandelions and on realising that, as Tim tells him 'that only makes them come back faster', that 'They must be like the many-headed Hydra. Every time you (39) chopped a head off, it would grow right back'. 

I've just made the same point in an academic article (on the Hydra for the Oxford Handbook of Classical Monsters - not out yet): that is on the Hydra being botanical-like - though I went further and considered how far she is not just plant like but a figure with plant features.

Right now Hercules is doing to the flowers what he did eventually to all the hydra's heads - namely, sear them with vividly humorous results leaving the garden devastated.

And now Hercules is trying to help again by slaying a tiger skin he thinks is a living tiger, showing, Tim thinks that - fitting the usual way of receiving Hercules as non-intelligent strong man - 'Hercules might be super-strong, but he wasn't super-smart' (62).

Oh and he wraps the tiger skin round Tim saying it will protect him from arrows.

I didn't mention that the only other character so far, Tim's mother, hasn't been able to see or hear Hercules. Now on the way to school, recalling the dogs in the Odyssey who can sense the invisible Odysseus, a large black dog - who I assume will be taken to be Cerberus - being walked by its owner senses Hercules.

Yes Cerberus: a really good way to introduce classical myths in a hands-on way.

Now at school, we meet the school bully Leo - who will presumably become the object of a first labour for Tim to parallel Hercules's encounter with the lion. The teacher is Miss Omiros. The best friend is Ajay - equalling Ajax?

They get home and, suggesting the cleaning of the Augean stables, Hercules has cleaned the whole house - but overdone it.

Several sets of quests then unfold - Hercules, who deeply wants to get back to his wife and daughter, realises that the ancient Greek inscription, now hard to read because of the fragmentary state of the vase, contains the means to get him back. But the solution of how to get him home is in the form of a riddle which Hercules doesn't have the ability to decipher. Tim can't work it out either and Hercules gets despondent, not even wanting to eat. 

When the depressed Hercules doesn't come to Tim's aid when Leo is bullying him, Tim manages to trick Leo, concluding that issue.

Meanwhile, Tim's mother, who has had a novel rejected 10 times, successfully pitches a book called Hercules the Housekeeper based on the stories Tim has told her about Hercules whom she considers to be made up by Tim - or does she - she has just told Tim (158) that it's a 'wonderful secret' that he has shared. 

Right now I am stuck that this book is really good - better than most: less clunky, more immersive - better than the first Percy Jackson which I didn't get far with (more for another time), more nuanced...

It turns out that the 'secret' is the answer to the riddle - nice! After Hercules is transported back to Greek myth, and Hera and Hermes come to try to get the vase, Tim manages to get to the vase first, aware that he now needs to look after it well. 

Here the book ends but with a preview of Tim's next adventure which turns out to the next book in the series: Hera's Terrible Trap.

So the books are all connected - I hadn't realised. Well: to book two soon... But so far so good, very good indeed. This might even be the most immersive, inventive and yet engaged-with-ancient-versions classical myth book for young people (7-9) I've read.

* I went to add the hyperlink to the blog posting on the Ure session, but I must have only drafted it and not typed it up. That is something I need to put right: a future task then...

Going the distance: a Herculean journey with Harry Rao via Disney and Michael Bolton

I've mentioned a few times on this blog what's happened on several occasions when I have explained to other autistic people why I am basing a set of lessons for autistic children on Hercules. 

When I give my reason for why, as I see it, Hercules can resonate with being autistic, responses have been in line with what the autistic academic Damian Milton said, namely: "that sounds like being autistic".*

Something different happened a couple of years ago when talking about Hercules with another autistic person. I found out that I myself didn't need to suggest possible links between Hercules and being autistic. For they had already made the connection independently of myself. 

Hercules 'goes the distance'** - Jan Baptist Borrekens (1611-1675),
The Apotheosis of Hercules after Peter Paul Reubens (1577-1640).  In the public domain.

The person in question was Harry Rao.*** At the time of the conversation, Harry had recently begun his degree in classical studies at Roehampton University. A year or so after that, Harry did work experience during the summer of 2022 with the Acclaim Network. 

Harry Rao during his mythical childhood

As part of this role, Harry wrote a piece for the Acclaim website. Here he reflected on how Hercules has resonated with him as an autistic person since he first watched Disney's Hercules, and as he has faced, and dealt with, successive challenges in life. However - and in keeping with my own sense of why Hercules can speak to dimensions of autism - it's not just about Herculean hardships as Harry sees it. For Harry also reports on how Hercules' "journey to greatness and fame" can serve as a source of autistic hope.

Here is the link to Harry's piece. 

I'm currently working with Harry again, for a further period of work experience, this time based around another mythological figure... on which, more soon...

* I reflect on what Damian Milton said in my forthcoming book. For now, the most detailed explanation of how Damian came to be in a position to hear my 'why Hercules?' explanation can be found here, in a piece I wrote for the Institute of Classical Studies blog in 2019.

** On going the distance with Hercules - c/o Michael Bolton - click the link in Harry's piece :)

*** Here's the link to Harry's Acclaim bio.

Getting ready to look back - and ahead - by sharing five publication covers

I have just been drafting a blog posting that reflects on my writing processes and on my PhD supervisor. It reflects, too, on fellow alumni from where I did my BA before that. These fellow alumni are, like me, academics with interests that include autism. 

I am not ready yet to write up the posting including because I have not yet worked out how to conclude it. For now though - including to help tie me in to completing it - here are the covers of five publications discussed in the posting:

 

More ASAP...

Plan B: slides for Fairer Societies

I was wondering about the best Plan B in case the slides I've emailed ahead of an event I'm taking part in on Saturday don't get through for some reason. Then I had this idea: put them into a blog post...

Here they are: they are for the workshop "Ancient World Studies and Fairer Societies" and, like several other taking part, I'll be talking about working with young people who are in PRUs (Pupil Referral Units). In my previous posting, I said a little about the event.

The labels for this postings seek to convey the range of things that I plan to mention prompted by these slides...

Preparing to talk about PRUs and a bit of Northern Soul at "Ancient World Studies and Fairer Societies" in Manchester this weekend

I have shared previously on this blog how much I loved running classical mythology-themed sessions at cultural sites for young people at PRUs (Pupil Referral Units). 

The first was with three primary school boys in spring of least year (2022) at the neoclassical Mount Clare in Roehampton in South-West London for the youth education programme Proud Places. 

The second, also in London - in Hampstead - took place a few months later, at Keats House, with boys from another PRU in London.

Keats House, once the home of the John Keats whose poetry and life (esp. the choice he faced between medicine and poetry) formed the focus of a Hercules-themed session with students from a PRU in London in summer 2022.

A seriously colour-coordinated me during my session at the Mount Clare temple with students from a PRU for the Proud Places youth programme in spring 2022.

A few months ago, I read the following notice about a workshop at the Manchester Centre for Youth Studies for classicists to discuss public engagement work including with PRUs:

---

Public Engagement Workshop: Ancient World Studies and Fairer Societies 

An event hosted collaboratively between the Institute of Classical Studies and Manchester Centre for Youth Studies

https://ics.sas.ac.uk/events/public-engagement-workshop-ancient-world-studies-and-fairer-societies

This one-day workshop aims to share and discuss public engagement and policy work projects carried out within the fields of Classics, Ancient History, Archaeology and Ancient World Studies more broadly. We would like to hear from colleagues who have worked with and/or for young people (0-25 years) in areas of education, community, care, and policy. Themes and topics may include, but are not restricted to:

• Co-producing projects with young people;
• Community work to support and engage young people;
• Theatre and performance with young people;
• Work towards shaping education policy;
• Work with PRUs and marginalised or excluded young people;
• Projects with care-leavers;
• Work with young people with disabilities;
• Projects for and with LGBTQ+ Youth projects;
• Projects supporting and involving young people from BAME and/or less privileged backgrounds;
• Work with young refugees; 
• Projects around young people's mental health and wellbeing. 

There will also be time allocated to facilitate discussion of potential projects with participants and partners, with a view to fostering collaboration, creative thinking, and sharing of experience and networks. We anticipate the publication of an edited volume within a dedicated series, showcasing the work of Ancient World researchers and teachers in working towards fairer societies. 

---

Enthused and exciting at this opportunity to share and connect, I responded as follows:

--- 

I would deeply like to take part in this event - not least in light of the opportunities set out in the Call to connect with others and explore possible new collaborations. I have recently begun to run sessions shaped by classical myth at cultural sites - in London to date - for students at PRUs. I would like to take this work further in connection with lessons I have developed for autistic young people, especially for a book due out this year. I am also tentatively planning a project on classical myth, dancing and self-expression through Northern Soul with a music producer/DJ. I would love the opportunity to share my progress to date, see what potential participants think there might be looking ahead - and connect with others driven to seek to make a difference.

All best, and thanks in advance for any responses... 

---

The result: I'm off to Manchester this weekend!

I'm able to attend due to the generosity of my colleagues in the Archaeology and Ancient History Department at Leicester University where I am currently an Honorary Visiting Fellow.

I'll be one of several people talking about working with PRUs. I'll say something briefly at least as well about the Northern Soul-linked project I mentioned in the message quoted above as well. I'm looking forward to hearing about the work and plans of others interested in making 'real world' applications of Classics. And I'm excited at the potential for exploring collaborations.

Watch this space...

Getting ready to arrive somewhere new for an autistic take on classical myth in London

Here's a very quick posting while I get ready to leave for London - to head to the London base of the University of Notre Dame near Trafalgar Square to teach students currently taking a module on classical myth in London.

I'll be talking about the (SW) London focus of the Hercules-focused lessons for autistic young people that I have designed and among the activities I'm planning for the students is a discussion of what it can feel like to arrive someone new. 

As I prepare, I'm myself gearing myself up to a new experience. I've never been to the University before and will be meeting the students for the first time - though their tutor is a friend, former colleague and fellow ACCLAIM member, Tony Keen, who I've known for many years - since 1993 I think...

More soon (I anticipate!)

Autism Acceptance Day - Sunday: where I look back and ahead, say more about ACCLAIM and possibly make up a new word to convey where I'm heading next

When I press send for this posting, I will have published seven in seven days, one for each day of Autism Acceptance Week. 

I've gone in quite a few directions, including: 

• talking about the potential in writing interactive mythological choose-your-own fiction 
• reflecting on studying at a college that was attractive to neurodivergent people 
• realising that the fit between a paper on Dance Movement Theory that I'll be writing for a conference in Coimbra later this year and the autism and myth activities I've developed/am planning is stronger than I'd realised.

I've not covered everything I thought I would. For example, on one of the days, I said that I was planning to write on Double Empathy Theory, but other things took over. But this will come: I am planning a new, post-Herculean, Medusean phase in my project - I just made up the word Medusean I think... - shaped by this Theory. 

I'm going to end where I started on Monday with the Acclaim Network. Since Monday, several people have joined, including from the UK, Ireland and the US. 

Acclaim Network as at 2nd April 2023 B-Mac

To date two new biographies are up - along with photos of the members' younger selves. Further bios will be added soon, possibly tomorrow.

Acclaim members as at 2nd April 2023: Mar-W

I'm looking forward to finding ways of networking. The scope is vast given the range of interests and connections including to give just a very quick sense of what connects us:

• writing fairy-tale dystopian novels 
• engaging marginalised students 
• exploring classical myth in inclusive children's fiction
• investigating ancient Greek mythology in popular culture
• mapping intersections of history, culture and neurodiversity
• discovering myth as a portal to other worlds
• innovating performance research
• negotiating intersections of neurodivergence, gender identity, sexuality and antiquity
• applying multidisciplinary pedagogies
• mapping classical receptions in sci-fi, literature and TV 

For more information - the above is far from complete - please read the bios here. 

I'll share progress in this blog...

Autism Acceptance Week - Saturday... Where I look back to my time studying at a haven for neurodivergent people

I recently responded to a call for comments from alumni looking to start an advocacy group for Lampeter. The call asked what it was about the campus that made it distinct. One of my comments was that it's a haven for neurodivergent people.

2001 - in PhD gown with Keith Hopwood, my supervisor

I made some similar comments a few years back - in a posting I wrote after a visit back in February 2019 where I gave a talk about the activities I was developing for autistic children involving Hercules. 

2019 - the start of a posting about a talk at Lampeter 

1988 or 1989 - in Conti's cafe, during my first year

And then, when the editors of the alumni magazine, The Link invited contributions from former classics students where they looked back to their time as students, I sent in some memories and reflections. My comments were raw, not fully grammatical and from the heart. They've been published, alongside those of fellow former students in the current edition.

You can find them here - on page... Ah I can't actually share it I think, but here is a snippet mentioning my thirst to study myth and feeling at sea in early lectures:

2023 - extract from the latest Lampeter Link

I'm planning another posting tomorrow - for Autism Acceptance Day itself...

 

Autism Acceptance Week - Friday: An interactive mythological adventure inspired by *Classical Mythology and Children's Literature... An Alphabetical Odyssey*

When I was about 10, I became aware of a kind of book for children that I'd not heard of previously. This may have just been new to me - or it might have been a completely new kind of book. The books of this kind appeared in the 'boys' section of the catalogues of children's books that my primary school had started to give each student each month. And they appeared in the section for children several years younger than I was. So I felt that these books doubly were not meant 'for me'. 

I wasn't able to make a case for any of them being bought for me - and I wasn't aware of anyone at school who'd bought any of them - so I never actually looked inside.

I've just realised that I've not said what these books were. They were adventure books where you would start at the beginning but, based on your response to choices you would be offered at specific points, you would be taken to a specific part of the book. These were books, then, where the readers could move back and forwards, perhaps returning to specific sections under different circumstances.

The books seemed exciting but also daunting - and I'm wondering whether I never pushed hard enough to get the books because I was afraid of being overwhelmed by them. It could be a bit like how I like the idea of video games but am too daunted by the sense of now knowing where I would be in them ever to play them.

I am writing this because I have been enjoying reading a new book that is lending itself to being dipped into and read in any order. It is an A-Z of mythological-inspired children's literature and it is the latest in the series of books in the series Our Mythical Childhood. 

The cover of An Alphabetical Odyssey

It is written by Liz Hale and Miriam Riverlea and illustrated by Steve Simons: all of whom have ben part of my life over the past few years. Indeed, I witnessed some of how the book came together thanks to Liz's updates in Warsaw at some of our project workshops.

It must be a lovely print book to own, but I'm reading it online, where anyone can access it freely as it's available as an Open Access book, as are all the books in the series.

Screenshot of the landing page for An Alphabetical Odyssey

It is organised so that the reader can dip in as they want, and, as I am reading it online I am making use of the 'find' facility to read around the book by putting in particular words and phrases. Here's hit 10/117 for 'hercules':

Searching in An Alphabetical Odyssey

Actually, now that I think of it, I like the idea of an academic book where the reader is given a choice at the end of each chapter/section and where, depending on what they choose, they are sent to a particular place in the book. Could such a book work? Could it be written in the first place?

Also, could there be books on classical myth organised this way? I am aware of 'choose your own' books on classical myth already, but those that I've seen have been structured in a linear way. In one, for instance, on Hercules, I recall that the book is structured around the twelve labours. I also recall that the reader has to make a choice during each labour and is told either that they have succeeded in the task in question and can move to the next one, or that they have failed and have been killed. If the latter happens, I think that they need to start all over again - until, presumably they get each labour 'right'.

But could a book be written where the reader can be sent on their own path though classical myth? Has such a book already been written? Such a book could have a really good fit with one reason why, I think, classical myth can appeal to autistic people. This reason is that, for all its fixed points, the potential for variation in myth is huge. There might be twelve labours for instance, but what happens in each can vary, the ordering can vary and who is in them can vary. There don't even need to be 12 - sometimes there are 10, or a vase painting will zoom in on just one. Or some labour will be being depicted that seems not to be one of the 'canonical' ones.

I just put 'choice' and 'choose' in the search facility of Liz and Miriam's book. A number of hits came up, including to a text book headed 'Choose your own adventure' on page 405 which includes four examples, written between the 1980s and 2018. The introduction to the textbox starts with the detail that these books were 'initially popular in the 1980s'. This would fit with when I first heard of them - I was 10 in 1980. 

Aha... 'These interactive adventure stories', they continue' in which the reader determines the course of the narrative, have had a recent resurgence'. And indeed, a few months ago, I heard from a colleague about online tools for writing interactive 'choose your own' books. I've done a quick search - and am going to look at some of the templates, and maybe even have a go...

This is Autism Acceptance Day Eve Eve - I'm aiming to do a further posting tomorrow.

Autism Acceptance Week – Thursday… ‘What Isadora Duncan knew: Athena as Dance Movement Therapist in ancient Greek art’

Abraham Walkowitz, Isadora Duncan #29, c. 1915.
Water and ink over graphite, Brooklyn Museum 39.174,
retrieved from Wikimedia Commons

A formative period for me while I was very much in the formative stages of being interested in connecting autism and classical myth was when I took a week-long dramatherapy course run by the Arts Therapies team at Roehampton.

It was an experience that went differently than I had expected. I had imagined us sitting in rows making notes from sessions led by the tutor. In fact, however, to introduce us to dramatherapy, we were all immersed in it as though we were clients. It was a deeply personal, sometimes difficult and transformative time.

Then, about a year later, I signed up for another course run by the same team on autistic bodies and movement. I was excited and was feeling some anxiety too about what would happen – but what happened was that the course was cancelled. So I never got to know.

Since then, however, movement and autism has been something I have been wanting to find out more about. And already, I have seen that it is when people copy the gestures of Hercules, Pleasure and Hard Work - on the panel that is key to the autism activities I have developed so far - that they move to a deeper level of engagement.

Carter Workshop, Chimneypiece panel depicting Hercules tasked
with choosing between Pleasure and Hard Work, Adam Room, Grove House,
Roehampton. Photo by Marina Arcady

I am soon going to be writing a paper that might enable me to gain an understanding of some of what might be involved. I am going to be spending several days in Coimbra in Portugal in July, participating in the Celtic Classics Conference. The panel I’ll be part of is ‘Religious Movement in Ancient Mediterranean Art’, convened by two inspirational ancient religion and art scholars Ellie Mackin Roberts and Tyler Jo Smith. What prompted me to offer a paper was especially one of the features in the Call for Papers which was that ritualised movement would connect participants and the deities being worshipped. Reading this, I wondered what could be brought into play – pun not intended, but I can’t think of a better way to put it… - when it is the god who is dancing.

I proposed a paper that employs Dance Movement Theory to examine the role of dace when on particular ancient deity, Athena, is being depicted or imagined as a dancer.

Athena emerging from the of Zeus, Attic black-figure belly amphora, c. 550-525 BCE 
belly amphora, now in the Louvre, Paris F 32. Retrieved from Wikimedia Commons

Here is the paper I proposed: 

What Isadora Duncan knew: Athena as Dance Movement Therapist in ancient Greek art

As noted in the Call for Papers, ritualised movement connects participants and the divinities being worshipped. But what about when it is the divinity that dances? Employing Dance/Movement Theory – where a client and a therapist engage in an empathetic process to facilitate the physical, emotional, social and cognitive integration of the individual – this paper will explore the significance of dance in relation to Athena. This is a deity whose dancing challenges prevailing assumptions about this god as a deity of ‘mind’ whose very theonym is, indeed, derived from ‘mind of god’ in Plato’s Kratylos. But, as this paper explores, there is already the ‘other name’, Pallas, derived in the same dialogue from frenzied, frantic pulsations. 

The paper will explore how Athena enacts a divine movement suggesting an instance of what Isadora Duncan knew: that ‘dance is the movement of the universe concentrated in an individual’, above all when Athena is depicted emerging from the head – the mind indeed – of another making furious, violent movements. The paper will start with images of Athena dancing herself into being. It will then turn to depictions of a frantically moving Athena at the Gigantomachy. Finally it will explore images of worshippers dancing like – or, better, as – the deity, suggesting a reconfiguration of space and time where the act of worship is creating the god, and where the god (therapist) and worshipper (client) are joined in an intensely empathetic creative moment.

Writing this posting has helped me to feel ready to get started – as has what I was writing about in the chapter draft of the book I mentioned yesterday. I was looking, among other things, at the play the Lysistrata, where the women of Athens go on sex strike and occupy the Akropolis – the home of Athena’s key sanctuary in the city. The play ends with a dance of joy where the final of a series of deities to be evoked to conclude the performance is… Athena.

More planned tomorrow...