We are delighted to announce the launch of an online talk series on ‘Neurodivergences & Modern Languages’, which explores the unique challenges that neurodivergent students face when studying languages, literatures and film at universities across the UK and Ireland.

The series brings together researchers, educators and those with lived experience to examine how we can transform modern languages pedagogy to be genuinely neuroinclusive. Taking an intersectional approach, we will explore how neurodivergence intersects with race, gender and class, challenge myths about diagnosis, and address the implicit ableism embedded in our teaching, delivery and assessment methods.

SESSION 1: INTRODUCTION TO NEURODIVERGENCES & MODERN LANGUAGES

Tuesday, 23 June | 1-2pm | Online via Microsoft Teams

This opening session will cover:

• The neurodiversity paradigm and what it means in higher education contexts
• Specific challenges and barriers that neurodivergent students face when studying modern languages
• Navigating neurodivergence in times of societal and institutional crisis
• The intersections of neurodivergence with race, gender and class
• Myths surrounding the so-called 'diagnosis crisis'

The session will entail short presentations from the speakers, followed by discussion and an audience Q&A. It will last 60 minutes and will be recorded and made available to the public.

This talk series is funded by the Faculty of Arts & Humanities, King’s College London, and the School of Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures, Maynooth University.

Speakers:

• Jodie Hare completed undergraduate and postgraduate studies in Modern Languages at King's College London and is the author of Autism is Not a Disease: The Politics of Neurodiversity, published by Verso in 2024. Her writing has featured in LARB, The New Statesman, The Bookseller, and beyond.
• Chantelle Jessica Lewis is a sociologist and consultant specialising in family studies, race, class and neurodiversity, and the co-author of We See Things They’ll Never See: Love, Hope, and Neurodiversity (Princeton University Press). She is a Research Fellow at Pembroke College, University of Oxford, and executive producer of Surviving Society Productions, a Radio Academy award nominated public sociology platform that has hosted hundreds of conversations with scholars, organisers and artists worldwide.
• The event will be chaired by Denise Henschel (University of Maynooth) and Catherine Smale (King's College London).