The Minotaur’s Maze: Encountering Neurodivergence in Classics

Speaker: Cora Beth Fraser (The Open University)

Thursday 6 February 2025, 12pm St Luke’s Chapel Free, but registration is required

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The social model of disability describes people as being disabled by barriers in society, rather than by our own impairment or difference. Barriers can be physical, practical, structural, social or conceptual. But barriers aren’t always negative. Some we choose to build ourselves, for very good reasons. This talk will explore the imagery of barriers and walls, looking at how they are associated with neurodivergent – and particularly autistic – people, both in teaching and learning and in popular culture. How do we differentiate between barriers and boundaries? When does ‘inclusion’ become a trap? And how does environment shape our experience of neurodivergent anxiety, even online?

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Cora Beth Fraser is an Associate Lecturer and Honorary Associate in Classics at The Open University, where she works with adult distance learners. Her teaching-related scholarship focuses on practical interventions to recognise and support neurodiversity in online learning. At The Open University she created and developed the Relaxed Tutorial Project, which has helped to roll out autism-friendly adjustments to thousands of students. Beyond the OU, in 2021 she founded a national organisation called Asterion, dedicated to celebrating and supporting neurodiversity in Classics. In 2024 she was awarded a National Teaching Fellowship. Cora Beth also researches neurodivergence in the reception of classical myth, and is currently working on a book on Autism and the Minotaur, exploring representations of isolation and monstrous difference in popular culture.