Serialized storytelling provides intriguing opportunities for critical representations of age and aging. In contrast to the finite character of films, television narratives can unfold across hundreds of episodes and multiple seasons. Contemporary viewing practices and new media technologies have resulted in complex television narratives, in which experimental temporalities and revisions of narrative linearity and chronological time have become key features. This volume investigates how the TV series as a powerful cultural medium can shape representations of age and aging, such as in Orange...

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...

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 and challenges often-quoted labels such as...

How are individual and social ideas of late-onset dementia shaped and negotiated in film, literature, the arts, and the media? And how can popular culture's symbolic forms be adopted and transformed by those affected to express their own perspectives? This international and interdisciplinary volume summarizes central current research trends and opens new theoretical and empirical perspectives on dementia in popular culture. It includes contributions by internationally renowned scholars from the humanities, social and cultural gerontology, age(ing) studies, cultural studies, philosophy, and...

The booming increase of the senior population has become a social phenomenon and a challenge to our societies, and technological advances have undoubtedly contributed to improve the lives of elderly citizens in numerous aspects. Technology, however, has largely ignored the human factor and has often viewed the ageing individual as a malfunctioning machine whose deficiencies must be diagnosed - or as a set of limitations to be overcome by means of technological devices. This volume aims at focusing on the subjective needs and fears of human beings deriving from the development and use of...

This collection consists of eight essays that examine the way narratives determine our understanding of old age and condition how the experience is lived. The contributors to this volume base their analysis on the concept of "narrative identity" developed by Paul Ricoeur, built upon the idea that fiction makes life, and on his definition of the "trace" as the mark of time. By investigating the traces of aging imprinted in a series of literary and filmic works, they dismantle the narrative of old age as decline and foreclosure to assemble one of transformation and growth.

Aging and memory - the interaction of these two aspects of life is something that everybody has to face eventually. The essays in this volume explore the cultural mediations of these categories. Through a series of approaches focused on practices and acts of memory, narrative, reminiscence, representation, and collective memory, they seek to better understand and critically reflect on how aging is experienced in various ways across the lifespan. By covering a wide range of topics, from biopics, music by the elderly, and artifacts, among other, they all contribute to the understanding of...

This volume aims to bridge the disciplinary gap between tourism studies and aging studies. It investigates the intersections of tourism and aging from a variety of perspectives, with a focus on the many ways in which senior tourism is socially constructed and individually experienced. The essays tackle key topics ranging from the socio-economic aspects of post-retirement travel to the representations of the traveling elderly in literature, film, and media, and the influence of travel on late-life creativity.

In Slavic studies, aging and old age have thus far been only marginal concerns. This volume brings together the scattered research that has been done up to now on aging as represented and narrated in Slavic literatures. The essays investigate Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian, Polish, Russian, Slovak, Slovene, and Ukrainian representations of age and aging in various literary genres and epochs and analyze age as a powerful marker of difference and as constitutive of social relations and personal identity.

Institutional care for seniors offers a cultural repository for fears and hopes about an aging population. Although enormous changes have occurred in how institutional care is structured, the legacies of the poor house still persist, creating panicked views of the nursing home as a dreaded fate. The paradoxical nature of a space meant to be both hospital and home offers up critical tensions for examination by age studies scholars. The essays in this book challenge stereotypes of institutional care for older adults, illustrate the changes that have occurred over time, and illuminate the...