There has been the start of a move towards Medusa in my practice of late!
I first tried out some of my ideas a couple of years ago in a seminar paper in Leicester, very tentatively. I returned to them this July at a conference in Coimbra, Portugal, where the paper was again well received. I'll go back through my notes and share some of the feedback and reflections from those occasions further down the line. For now, though, I want to share what I'm planning for a third Medusa paper, to be delivered as a seminar at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, in January.
I've been thinking about what might be called a Medusa Turn. This is partly because of the prominence the figure has acquired in contemporary culture, and seems set to keep acquiring. My own interest lies in the questions she raises about difference, identity and the ways in which people are seen and understood.
This work builds on my earlier work on another figure who has proved persistently adaptable across time and cultures: Hercules. In my book What Would Hercules Do? Lessons for Autistic Children Using Classical Myth (2023), I explored how classical mythology can offer autistic children ways of expressing themselves, making connections and choices, and communicating. As I shared in this blog while I was developing my work on the topic, I was interested in what happens when myth is approached from the perspective of autistic children themselves: not as something to be used to explain autism to others, but as a resource that can offer possibilities for expression, imagination and being.
That work has prompted me to think further about how classical myth might be approached from a neurodiversity perspective. And this is where Medusa comes in.
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| Judy Takács, Me(dusa)too (2018): a feminist reimagining of Medusa in response to the #MeToo movement, wearing a hashtag stigmata. Sourced from Wikimedia Commons here |
Medusa has become an increasingly prominent figure in art, literature and popular culture, and has been taken up and reimagined as a way of expressing experiences of marginalisation, survival and resistance. I am interested in why she has become such a compelling figure, and in the different meanings that have gathered around her. What is it about Medusa that makes her such a powerful figure through which to think about experiences of being seen as different, threatening or outside the boundaries of what is considered acceptable?
In ancient myth, Medusa is so often approached through the language of monstrosity, fear and otherness. Her gaze turns those who look at her to stone; her appearance unsettles familiar distinctions between human and non-human, beautiful and frightening, familiar and strange. But there is another set of questions to ask here. Who gets to define what counts as monstrous? How is difference perceived and represented? And what happens when those who have been labelled as monstrous begin to reclaim that identity?
I want to explore what a neurodiversity perspective might bring to an understanding of Medusa. This means drawing on work in Neurodiversity Studies and Disability Studies, while remaining attentive to the particularities of ancient Greek and Roman contexts. I am not suggesting that ancient ideas of monstrosity can simply be translated into modern understandings of neurodivergence. Rather, I am interested in what becomes visible when the two are brought into conversation, and in the questions that Medusa might help to open up.
I have been developing a way of organising these ideas through the framework M-E-D-US-A. It is a heuristic for exploring the different dimensions of the subject, rather than a theoretical model in its own right:
Monster – ideas of excess, intensity and boundary-crossing, and the ways in which these become associated with monstrosity.
Education – the uses of myth in education, both in antiquity and today, and what stories can make possible in teaching and learning.
Dimensions – the visual, sensory, emotional and social dimensions of difference.
US – postclassical receptions of Medusa and what they reveal about changing ways of thinking about her.
Antiquity – returning to ancient representations of fear, visibility and altered perception, and considering them in their own historical and cultural contexts.
One of the things I find particularly interesting is the possibility of bringing these questions back into educational practice. My work with Hercules has shown me how classical myth can provide a starting point for autistic children to explore ideas, communicate and make connections. Could Medusa offer further possibilities? Could thinking about her help to open up conversations about difference, perception and communication? And how might this approach inform work not only with autistic children but also with the adults who teach them?
These are questions I am still working through, and I am looking forward to exploring them further. What interests me most is the possibility of approaching classical myth not simply as a body of stories to be interpreted, but as something that can help create new ways of thinking, communicating and learning in the present.
