Welcome to the AMEND blog!

Welcome to the blog for the project AMEND – Early Modern European Neurodivergence at Swansea University. This project investigates neurodivergence in Europe in the period 1550-1750CE, across languages and cultures, taking into account the many kinds of interactions between Europe and other continents.  

The project runs January 2025-December 2030. In this project we will be: 

• Defining how people in Europe in 1550-1750CE understood and experienced what we nowadays call neurodivergence (2025-2027) 

• Exploring neurodivergent ways of engaging with texts, from

  smelling pages to reading, collaging, and throwing books aside in boredom (2027-2028) 

• Working out how to use bibliotherapy, dramatherapy, and ecotherapy in ways that genuinely work for neurodivergent people (2028-2030) 

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AMEND is a highly collaborative project, and there are lots of opportunities to get involved. We organise talks, creative workshops, dance and theatre performances, research interviews and focus groups, and a conference. We will share what we have learned through books, articles, blog posts, and a digital map.  

On this blog you will find exciting things that we have been working on, as well as reviews of books, exhibitions, and plays related to early modern neurodivergence.

If you have an idea for a blog post, or there’s something you’d like to review, please get in touch. 

I hope you enjoy reading the blog, and that it sparks ideas in you for your own life, work, and conversations. If you have any more questions about the project, email me on laura.seymour@swansea.ac.uk (though after 2030 I may not reply!) 

Laura Seymour, Principal Investigator, AMEND project  

'Woolly Thinking: Artwork of the Brain' by Sarah Grice, via Wellcome Collection. In the public domain.