Böcker i Aging Studies-serien

While aging and the life-course appear to be normalized processes, the complex construction of age at the intersection of biology, society, and culture remains opaque. This study contributes to a deeper understanding of age(ing) by exploring its construction through the analysis of extraordinary cases. Focusing on life narratives of centenarians and children with progeria, Julia Velten analyzes the way in which these people experience age(ing) and shows how these experiences can contribute to our understanding of age. Situated at the intersection of aging studies and medical humanities, the study explores what extraordinary age(ing) can tell us about aging processes in general.

The binary construction of young and old, which is based on a biogerontological model of aging as decline, can be redefined as the ambiguity of aging from a cultural studies perspective. This concept enables an analysis of the social functions of images of aging with the aim of providing a basis for interdisciplinary exchange on gerontological research.The articles in this publication conceive the relationship between living and aging as a productive antagonism which focuses on the interplay between continuity and change as a marker of life course identity: aging and growing older are processes which cannot be reduced to the chronology of years but which are shaped by the individual's interaction with the changing circumstances of life.

When Toula's father in My Big Fat Greek Wedding says to his daughter (age 30) you look so old or when Don DeLillo's protagonist (age 28) feels old in Cosmopolis, these young characters are attributed an age awareness that has received little attention in age studies so far. Leaving aside chronological or biological dimensions of age, this study approaches age as a metaphoric practice, suggesting that feeling old is not to be taken literally but metaphorically. The book examines the cultural meanings of age and aging for characters who are in their twenties and thirties and challenges often-quoted labels such as late-coming-of-age story or perpetual adolescence.

What do literary texts tell us about growing old? The essays in this volume introduce and explore representations of ageing and old age in canonical works of English and postcolonial literature. The contributors examine texts by William Shakespeare, Daniel Defoe, Julian Barnes, Thomas Kinsella, Seamus Heaney, J.M. Coetzee, Alice Munro, Witi Ihimaera and Patricia Grace and, together with a medical study, they suggest solutions to the challenges arising from the current demographic change brought about by ageing Western populations.

Dominant cultural narratives about later life dismiss the value senior citizens hold for society. In her cultural-philosophical critique, Hanne Laceulle outlines counter narratives that acknowledge both potentials and vulnerabilities of later life. She draws on the rich philosophical tradition of thought about self-realization and explores the significance of ethical concepts essential to the process of growing old such as autonomy, authenticity and virtue. These counter narratives aim to support older individuals in their search for a meaningful age identity, while they make society recognize its senior members as valued participants and moral agents of their own lives.