Suchergebnisse

Der amerikanische Feminismus ist alt und grau geworden. Roberta Maierhofers Studie setzt an der Schnittstelle zwischen Identität, Alter und Geschlecht an und lässt die »Salty Old Women« neben die hinlänglich bekannten »Sweet Old Ladies« treten.Durch einen anokritischen Zugang, der in Anlehnung an Elaine Showalters »gynocriticism« die Annahme ablehnt, dass die Biologie des Menschen identitätsbestimmend den sozialen und kulturellen Stellenwert festlegt, begibt sie sich auf die Suche nach einer spezifischen weiblichen Kultur des Alterns.

Main description: 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.

As social spaces are culturally diverse and digitally networked, the reality of our lives is shaped by processes of globalization and digitization. This leads to the question of whether popular cultures enable or impede (inter-)cultural exchange and global communication. To explore this, the contributors to this volume analyze representations of the intersections of gender and age/ing in cultural and media consumption, such as literature, film, music, and social media. The interconnectedness between gender and aging has been evident since the 1990s and enabled the recognition of age as a cultural category - now is the time to take this intersectional analysis further.

As social spaces are culturally diverse and digitally networked, the reality of our lives is shaped by processes of globalization and digitization. This leads to the question of whether popular cultures enable or impede (inter-)cultural exchange and global communication. To explore this, the contributors to this volume analyze representations of the intersections of gender and age/ing in cultural and media consumption, such as literature, film, music, and social media. The interconnectedness between gender and aging has been evident since the 1990s and enabled the recognition of age as a cultural category - now is the time to take this intersectional analysis further.

Literaturangaben

Abstract: This paper summarizes findings from the Austrian research team of the MascAge Project involving online focus groups with Austrian men aged 65 and over and a case study in literary and cultural studies in the form of an analysis of David Schalko's novel Bad Regina (2021). Both analyses suggest that negotiations of (declining) power are central to understanding cultural and social constructions of aging masculinities in Austria in the early 2020s. This paper provides an insight into an interdisciplinary endeavor on current dimensions of aging men in Austria that contributes to a better understanding of current debates in Austrian Studies.

The discourse of positive aging has become the central plank upon which international and national aging policies are constructed. Moreover, an increasing number of popular writers are advocating positive aging as a means to age actively, successively, and productively. These include authors of self-help books, media personalities, as well as writers from psychology and the social sciences As many gerontologists point out, rationales supporting positive aging convey a common message that later life is a time of opportunity and 'old age' a state to be resisted, whilst treating 'disengagement' from society or the marginalization of 'pensioned retirement' as a moral or personal failing. Such a stance is a sharp turn away from modern visions of aging policy, popular during the 1970s and 1980s, where older people were generally expected to embrace a passive lifestyle wholly dependent upon state welfare policy. One key problem, however, is that rationales advocating positive aging are generally embedded in a neo-liberal ideology that encourages individuals to become 'entrepreneurs of themselves,' behaving according to the ideal of economic markets, and choosing the optimal courses of action that maximize their interests. Positive aging thus overlooks how in capitalism the drive of human beings to self-develop tends to be captive to the ideological hegemony of the commoditization of culture. This argument is presented in four sections. Whilst the first part focuses on the genealogy and key tenets of positive aging, the second section presents some international policies advocating the goal of positive aging. The third section provides a constructive critique of positive aging, stressing its neo-liberal bias, and hence, its limitations as a social change program. The final part forwards recommendations that function to improve the democratic credentials of positive aging. ; peer-reviewed

Global mobility is one of the crucial phenomena of our time. Combining the theoretical frameworks of masculinity studies and age studies, the contributors to this volume examine the intersection of cultural exchange, gender and age, exploring ageing masculinities with reference to the key concepts of relationality, kinship and care. The essays analyze transcultural experiences of ageing men from Europe, relationships including the Indian diaspora in the US, Chinese father images in the US-American context and Black British queer kinship, drawing its examples also from Brazilian society and African European contexts.