Aging and identity : a humanities perspective
Viewing artistic works through the lens of both contemporary gerontological theory and postmodernist concepts, the contributing scholars examine literary treatments, cinematic depictions, and artistic portraits of aging from Shakespeare to Hemingway, from Horton Foote to Disney, from Rembrandt to Alice Neale, while also comparing the attitudes toward aging in Native American, African American, and Anglo American literature. The examples demonstrate that long before gerontologists endorsed a Janus-faced model of aging, artists were celebrating the diversity of the elderly, challenging the bio-medical equation of senescence with inevitable senility. Underlying all of this discussion is the firm conviction that cultural texts construct as well as encode the conventional perceptions of their society; that literature, the arts, and the media not only mirror society's mores but can also help to create and enforce them
x, 256 pages ; 24 cm
9780275964795, 0275964795
39733038
Introduction by Sara Munson Deats and Lagretta Tallent LenkerThe Aging Male in LiteratureThe Dialectic of Aging in Shakespeare's King Lear and The Tempest by Sara Munson DeatsShakespeare Teaching Geriatrics: Lear and Prospero as Case Studies in Aged Heterogeneity by Kirk Combe and Kenneth SchmaderWhy? versus Why Not? Potentialities of Aging in Shaw's Back to Methuselah by Lagretta Tallent LenkerHemingway's Aging Heroes and the Concept of Phronesis by Phillip SipioraBertrand Russell in His Nineties: Aging and the Problem of Biography by William T. Ross The Aging Female in LiteratureWork, Contentment, and Identity in Aging Women in Literature by Rosalie Murphy BaumOld Maids and Old Mansions: The Barren Sisters of Hawthorne, Dickens, and Faulkner by Maryhelen C. HarmonThe Aging Artist: The Sad but Instructive Case of Virginia Woolf by Joanne Trautmann BanksAging in the CommunityThe Sacred Ghost: The Role of the Elder(ly) in Native American Literature by David ErbenAging and the African-American Community: The Case of Ernest J. Gaines by Charles J. Heglar and Annye L. RefoeAging and the Continental Community: Good Counsel in the Writings of Two Mature European Princesses, Marguerite de Navarre and Madame Palatine by Christine McCall ProbesAging and Academe: Caricature or Character by Helen Popovich and Deborah NoonanAging and the Public Schools: Visits of Charity-The Young Look at the Old by Ralph M. ClineAging in the Fine and Popular ArtsAging and Contemporary Art by Linnea S. DietrichThe Return Home: Affirmations of Aging and Transformations of Identity in Horton Foote's The Trip to Bountiful by Carol J. JablonskiAnimated Gerontophobia: Ageism, Sexism, and the Disney Villainess by Merry G. Perry8 1/2 and Me: The Thirty-Two Year Difference by Norman N. HollandBibliographyIndex