A poster from the Arts and Humanities Annual Conference 2014.
On this conference's definition monsters dwell in realms just beyond our own; they can come into our world to 'unnerve' us and 'innervate' us. Thus a 'monstrous pedagogy' can 'disrupt habits' and 'articulate...different ways of being'.
But who are 'we'? There is a suggestion running through the particulars that 'we' are the heroes while it is the monsters who come into 'our' world to shake it up. This is expressed most of all in the explanation of one strand of the conference 'Slayers Scoobies and Watchers' which noting that 'every Giant needs its Jack' 'celebrates the heroes who hold the line at the hellmouth by sharing tales of epic battles and vanquished learning and teaching demons'. But who are the monsters? What about the learner or teacher who is not trying to find space for otherness but who is already different... other . . . a monster . . . Can a monster create a monstrous pedagogy or does such a pedagogy get created for a monster or even to vanquish a monster?
My poster will explore the potential of a 'disability studies' approach to disrupt the habits of academics from the perspective of my discipline: Classics. It will trace how the hero/monster metaphor can inform the quest for disruptive pedagogies. It will ask how a heroic pedagogy can be a monstrous one citing the specific example of my ongoing project on autism and classical mythology.
