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Ageing and the Body: Twenty Years on
Ageing and the Body: Twenty Years on
Sunday, 10 July 2016: 09:00-10:30
Location: Hörsaal BIG 1 (Main Building)
RC11 Sociology of Aging (host committee) Language: English
In 2016, it will be twenty years since Peter Oberg’s seminal article inAgeing and Society on the absent body in social gerontology. Since then, there has been a flood of work on the body and embodiment, indeed so much so that these are now recognised as key topics within the sociology of ageing. Work has gone forward, among other things, on the complex interplay between physiological and cultural ageing; on anti-ageing and the role of consumption in the constitution of age; on cultural diversity and its embodiment; on emotion, sexuality and pleasure.
New work within arts and humanities have further extended the range of topics, theories and methodologies, helping to create the new Cultural Gerontology. Though such approaches initially emerged in relation to the Third Age, they apply also to the Fourth Age of old bodies, frailty and decline. This is territory that was traditionally seen through the lens of the body, but in ways that failed to engage with the cultural and the symbolic, the experiential and the subjective. New work on embodiment has begun to redress these deficiencies.
This session is therefore a timely opportunity to review the study of ageing, body and society and to critically explore future challenges and possibilities. For this session, we invite theoretical, empirical and methodological submissions addressing the broad theme of the body, embodiment and age.
Session Organizers:
Chair: