Gray Matters: Finding Meaning in the Stories of Later Life

Author:   Ellyn Lem ,  Margaret Cruikshank
Publisher:   Rutgers University Press
ISBN:  

9781978806313


Pages:   288
Publication Date:   28 August 2020
Recommended Age:   From 16 to 99 years
Format:   Paperback
Availability:   In Print   Availability explained
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Gray Matters: Finding Meaning in the Stories of Later Life


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Overview

Winner of the 2021 Excellence in Research and Scholarly Activity Award from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Finalist for the 2021 American Book Fest Best Book Awards Aging is one of the most compelling issues today, with record numbers of seniors over sixty-five worldwide. Gray Matters: Finding Meaning in the Stories of Later Life examines a diverse array of cultural works including films, literature, and even art that represent this time of life, often made by people who are seniors themselves. These works, focusing on important topics such as housing, memory loss, and intimacy, are analyzed in dialogue with recent research to explore how “stories” illuminate the dynamics of growing old by blending fact with imagination. Gray Matters also incorporates the life experiences of seniors gathered from over two hundred in-depth surveys with a range of questions on growing old, not often included in other age studies works. Combining cultural texts, gerontology research, and observations from older adults will give all readers a fuller picture of the struggles and pleasures of aging and avoids over-simplified representations of the process as all negative or positive. 

Full Product Details

Author:   Ellyn Lem ,  Margaret Cruikshank
Publisher:   Rutgers University Press
Imprint:   Rutgers University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 14.00cm , Height: 2.00cm , Length: 21.60cm
Weight:   0.004kg
ISBN:  

9781978806313


ISBN 10:   1978806310
Pages:   288
Publication Date:   28 August 2020
Recommended Age:   From 16 to 99 years
Audience:   General/trade ,  College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  General ,  Tertiary & Higher Education
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print   Availability explained
This item will be ordered in for you from one of our suppliers. Upon receipt, we will promptly dispatch it out to you. For in store availability, please contact us.

Table of Contents

Foreword by Margaret Cruikshank Introduction: “Where Do I Begin?” Senior Parents and Their Adult Children: “Can’t We All Just Get Along?” Surveying the Housing Options: “No Place like Home”? Understanding Memory Loss: “Am I Losing my Mind?” Intimacy: “Love is All You Need”? Women and Men: “Separate But Equal”? Money, Work and Retirement: “Are We There Yet?” Death: “The Final Frontier”? Afterword Acknowledgments Works Cited Index  

Reviews

Lem draws examples from literature, film, television, and a survey of older people to support a wide-ranging and accessible examination of contemporary culture. Especially helpful to those who are new to the field, this book is a welcome addition to age-studies scholarship. --Valerie Lipscomb author of Performing Age in Modern Drama Gray Matters invites readers to reexamine what they think they know about growing old. Offering succinct close readings of richly diverse cultural texts, Lem's book presents literature as a resource for dealing with the practical and existential concerns of aging. With its interdisciplinary grounding in age studies theory and sociological data, Gray Matters is itself a valuable resource for readers ready to reorient their view of later life. --Erin Lamb co-editor of Research Methods in Health Humanities Creative, wide-ranging and well-written, Gray Matters offers a many-sided, complex understanding of late-life. It demonstrates that this period of our lives interweaves our past and present, takes grit, and offers opportunities for positive experiences. For some, learning becomes more enjoyable, as the phrase 'senior college' indicates. Gray Matters also skillfully shows that aging occurs in a social context, a fact often overlooked when the process is understood as solely an individual matter. --Margaret Cruikshank from the foreword


Author Information

ELLYN LEM is a professor of English and gender studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee at Waukesha. 

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