Autism and Classical Myth: February 2024

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.

Sunday, 25 February 2024

What I'm doing blogging-wise as a fellow at Durham sharing my Adventures in the Palace Green concerning classics in 19th-century young people's culture

I realise that I've been quiet on this blog for a month or so. Posts will come - especially now that my book is out, and the accompanying materials are soon to go live. And, in the meantime, let me stress that it's not that I haven't been busy blogging-wise. I've actually been more busy blogging than in quite a while - since the last time I posted each day for Autism Week a few years back.

This is because I've started a new blog to share findings of a project that began earlier this month.

The blog is called Adventures in the Palace Green - and in this blog, I do what's 'said on the tin' - I share what I have been finding out in my time in the Special Collections reading room - the Barker Room - at Palace Green Library of the University of Durham where I'm currently a Barker Fellow.

Screenshot - in Flipcard mode - of my Adventures... blog to date

As a Barker Fellow, I'm doing something that might look different from my work on autism and classical myth. What I'm doing does however build from that work - and may very well shape further things that I go do on autism, young people and mythology. For the project concerns how young people - mostly young men - of the Long 19th Century experienced Classics. Thus it is a project that, like the autism and myth one, concerns where young people's culture connects with Classics.

It is my pleasure to share the blog with you. If you take a look, I'd love to hear what you think.

The blog can be found here.