Exploring the Boundaries of Literary Age Studies “Exploring the Boundaries of Age Studies,” a roundtable at the MLA convention in Philadelphia in January 2017, was proposed by members of the Modern Language Association’s Age Studies Forum as a response to this year’s Conference’s Presidential Theme: “Boundary Conditions.”
Category: 30.1 Ageing Lines
30.1 | Lynn Botelho
Preface | Old Age is Not a Modern Invention At times, it seems that Old Age is something that only we post-moderns have had to think about, let alone deal with its physical and economic consequences, or the cultural polarization that renders the elderly as wise or foolish, rich or poor, healthy or sick, or… Continue reading 30.1 | Lynn Botelho
30.1 | Sophie van den Elzen
Masterclass | On the Limits of Autobiography and Not Getting to Age: How Hervé Guibert did not Go Gently in À l’ami qui ne m’a pas sauvé la vie and Cytomégalovirus Abstract This paper discusses two works by Hervé Guibert, a French author who was an influential voice in the public debates surrounding AIDS in… Continue reading 30.1 | Sophie van den Elzen
30.1 | Gregory Stephens
Fathering Rescripted: The Shadow of the Son in Coetzee’s Late Fiction Abstract The issue of late fatherhood and the role children play in creative works of senior writers frame my discussion of representations of fathering in the late work of J.M. Coetzee. I focus on Coetzee’s allegorical treatment of fractured father-son relationships in The Childhood… Continue reading 30.1 | Gregory Stephens
30.1 | Marta Miquel-Baldellou
Disrupting Dictates of Gender and Ageing through Creativity: Daphne du Maurier’s Writing Persona in The Breaking Point Abstract In her collection The Breaking Point (1959), Daphne du Maurier gives rise to a series of short stories which feature ageing characters facing a critical period in their lives, that subvert traditional dictates of gender and ageing.… Continue reading 30.1 | Marta Miquel-Baldellou
30.1 | Rudolph Glitz
Ageing and Identity as a Problem for Social Justice Abstract This article highlights a problem with social justice criticism in the humanities that treats age inequalities as if they were analogous to inequalities between different races or genders. It claims that what is missing from such criticism is an awareness of the peculiar temporality of… Continue reading 30.1 | Rudolph Glitz