Humanistic Gerontology Research Articles

Textualizing the Maison de retraite in Contemporary Narratives by Francophone Women Authors

In Care Home Stories, Sally Chivers and Ulla Kriebernegg emphasize the need "to tell new and better stories about institutional care," arguing that retirement homes provide "a cultural repository for fears and hopes about an aging population" (17). This article examines the diverse ways in which "nursing-home-narrative fiction" (Life 191) by Francophone women authors raises critical questions about longevity and the ethics of care. Given their strong emphasis on modalities of care and their call for dignity and respect, these engaged narratives constitute powerful examples of "protest literature" (Gullette 80) and, as such, make a significant contribution to humanistic gerontology.

박완서 문학에 나타난 노년의 사유 -인문학적 노년학의 가능성에 대하여-

본 연구는 중국인과 베트남인 한국어 학습자의 불평 화행 실현 양상을 알아보는 데 목적이 있다. 이를 위해 중국인 한국어 학습자 50인, 베트남 한국어 학습자 50인의 자료를 수집하여 다중응답분석과 교차 분석으로 자료를 분석하였다. 상황별 불평 전략 사용에 대해 알아본 결과, 낯선 상대와의 대화와 친한 친구가 다른 대상에 대해 불평하는 상황에서는 어떻게 반응해야 할지 모르겠다고 응답한 학습자들이 있었고, 친한 상대의 비공격적 발화 상황에서는 한국인에 비해 학습자들이 간접적인 전략을 더 많이 사용하였다. 불평 화행 실현 여부를 살펴본 결과, 불평 화행의 실현 빈도는 높게 나타났다. 또한 공격적 발화에 대한 반응을 살펴본 결과, 베트남인은 어떻게 반응해야 할지 모르겠다고 답한 학습자가 많았고, 중국인은 부적절한 표현을 사용하는 경우도 확인할 수 있었다. 이러한 결과를 바탕으로 한국어 교실에서 다양한 상황에서의 불평 화행이 교수, 학습 내용으로 선정될 필요가 있을 것이다.

Ageing in Irish Writing: Strangers to Themselves

Ageing in Irish Writing: Strangers to Themselves

The COVID-19 Pandemic Reignites the Need for Person-Centered Gerontological Approach.

The national response to the COVID-19 pandemic pressed gerontologists to reflect, redesign, and reform services supporting older adults. Efforts to isolate a peer cohort to stabilize and maintain a standard of health had adverse outcomes and added pressure conflicting with autonomy and individual desires. In this, person-centered care emerges as a meaningful archetype to address dignity and independence. This article presents views from academics and practitioners across an interdisciplinary spectrum, arising from a webinar hosted by Georgetown University Program in Aging & Health. A description of personhood as an extension of the humanities is followed by a robust discussion of safety and autonomy for older adults during the COVID-19 pandemic. We examine the necessary commute between critical gerontological theory and the practice of humanistic gerontology. Further, this article disentangles humanism and person-centered care to balance autonomy and safety for older adults in congregate living situations and focuses on specific populations: people with dementia and their care partners. Discussion on the importance of person-centered policy development in a public health pandemic is also explored. The article concludes with a call to action for the adoption of a comprehensive person-centered care model across the fields of gerontology and geriatric medicine.

Through the Gerontological Looking Glass: Perspectives From Later Life

Do dominant gerontological research and education models help us understand our own aging? “(These) seemingly made no impact on my expectations for my own late life” (Cohen, 2017). The gerontological looking glass tends to favor research and teaching that identify large patterns, populations, and research cell sizes of “sufficient” numbers to produce data about external, descriptive assessments; and are compliant with nomothetic ideology: general, universal, and consistent. Even qualitative data rely on numbers of respondents to identify themes. In contrast, idiographic ideology emphasizes the individual and unique. While not meant to yield general findings, neither does it produce the incompleteness of descriptive statistical approaches, i.e., trying to capture the external persona. As human aging is both inherently universal and profoundly individual, one is likely to appreciate idiographic gerontology with awareness of one’s own aging. Various complementary perspectives—including humanistic gerontology, positive and conscious aging, and the curriculum palette—are relevant.

Land, History and People: Older people’s Stories about Meaningful Activities and Social Relations in Later Life

Social and humanistic gerontology have challenged the narratives of pessimism and decline embedded in bio-medical models of aging and care. One stream of criticism comes from literature about active ageing, and another from literature on person-centred care. A common concern is how to promote well-being during old age. This study explores the possibilities of promoting well-being and person-centred care practices in the context of home-based elderly care. It is based on qualitative interviews and observational data from two rural municipalities in Northern Norway. Using descriptive-interpretive qualitative research methods, we have explored the met and unmet needs of 28 older adults receiving home-based care services. The interviews revealed that their needs for medical treatment and practical assistance in the home were largely accommodated for. However, they had needs that frequently remained unaddressed, particularly the need for social interaction and for engaging in meaningful everyday activities outside the house. What is experienced as meaningful to our participants is embedded in local landscapes and practices, and in their personal biographies and bodily experiences. We show how carers and local communities may promote well-being by accommodating for embodied experiences that create a sense of connectedness to the land, history and people.

JOAN MARGARIT’S LATE-LIFE POETRY AND THE MEANINGS OF AGEING

Within the thriving field of literary gerontology, several studies have demonstrated that new approaches and articulations of the self appear in the work of well-known writers in their old age. Besides revealing new facets about the authors’ work, these observations frequently entail discoveries about the meaning that ageing itself has for those writers. In the light of these studies, this article offers a close reading of the late poetry of Joan Margarit (b. 1938) at a time when the widely acclaimed Catalan poet has just entered his eighth decade. As will be demonstrated, the images of ageing that appear in Margarit’s late poems do not necessarily favor the narrative of decline with which old age was associated in earlier stages of the poet’s career. Rather, his later writings lead to a more integrative model of ageing, in which positive and negative views of old age coexist. All in all, a critical reading of Margarit’s most recent poems through the lens of humanistic gerontology throws light not only on the evolution of the poet’s oeuvre and the articulation of selfhood that is expressed in his latest collections, but also on the creative interaction between literature and old age, and the developmental view of ageing that such an interaction entails.

인문학적 노년학의 관점에서 본『나빌레라』- 한국 만화에 재현된 새로운 노년관 -

인문학적 노년학의 관점에서 본『나빌레라』- 한국 만화에 재현된 새로운 노년관 -

Virtuous aging and existential vulnerability

In its efforts to overcome problematic views that associate aging with inevitable decline, contemporary gerontology shows a tendency to focus predominantly on age-related vulnerabilities that science may try to remedy and control. However, gerontology should also offer languages to address vulnerabilities that cannot be remedied because they intrinsically belong to the human condition. After all, these are increasingly radically encountered in later life and should therefore be reflected upon in the study of aging. Humanistic gerontology seems to be the most promising field to look for languages capable of contemplating such existential vulnerabilities. The potential contribution of philosophy in this field remains underdeveloped so far, however. This article therefore aims to introduce insights from the philosophical tradition to (humanistic) gerontology. More specifically, it focuses on the tradition of virtue ethics, arguing that virtue is a particularly relevant notion to explore in dealing with existential vulnerability in later life. The notion of virtue is clarified by discussing a selection of philosophical perspectives on this topic, by Aristotle, MacIntyre and Swanton. Next a brief overview will be given of some of the ways the notion of virtue has found its way into gerontological discourse so far. The article ends with an analysis of the merits of virtue-ethical discourse for the study of aging and later life, and pleads for more inclusion of philosophical ideas such as virtue in gerontology, as these can enrich our conceptual frameworks and help us relate to deep existential questions regarding the experience of aging.

What's the Point of Aging? Does Philosophy Make a Difference?

Jan Baars is the premier philosopher of aging, working in Europe and the United States today. Actually, to call him a philosopher of aging is to diminish the range of his thought and his accomplishments. Baars, who writes in Dutch and in English and whose work has been translated into several languages, recently “retired” as Professor of Interpretive Gerontology at the University of Humanistic Studies in Utrecht, where he retains a part-time appointment and continues to extend and publish his remarkable body of work. It is difficult for American readers and gerontologists to appreciate the breadth of Baars’s work—partly because of its density and also because it emerges from his dual training, both in the social sciences and in the European tradition of Continental philosophy. We rarely encounter a scholar whose thought ranges across conceptual analysis, historical interpretation of texts, social theory, critical gerontology, and existential issues. Baars, however, began his career far from the concerns of aging. In 1975, he organized a major conference at the Free University of Amsterdam on “Theory and Praxis in Sociological Theory,” where he brought critical theorists and phenomenological sociologists into philosophical conversation with Dutch sociology, which he found too limited in its uncritical integration into the social life of the country. In 1987, Baars’s philosophy dissertation on the Frankfurt School theorists Horkheimer and Adorno led him to embrace Habermas’s view of communicative discourse as a means of analyzing problems of social justice, interpreting the meaning of human existence, and understanding the disparate spheres of politics, science, and everyday life. Baars then turned his attention to gerontology, just at the time when the author organized the first conference on Critical Gerontology at the University of Texas Medical Branch (1991), leading to the volume Voices and Visions of Aging: Toward a Critical Gerontology (Cole, Achenbaum, Jakobi, & Kastenbaum, 1993), in which Harry (Rick) Moody first articulated the concept of critical gerontology. In Moody’s formulation, critical gerontology unsettled mainstream gerontology by introducing interpretive and emancipatory philosophical questions, beginning with the realization that instrumental knowledge about aging carried the possibilities of social control of older people and undermined the possibilities of emancipatory social change. Baars, too, had come to the view that science did not produce “objective” knowledge but functioned as a means of legitimating and regulating social processes and forms of domination. This view was first fully exemplified in gerontology by Steven Katz’s Disciplining Old Age: The Formation of Gerontological Knowledge (1996). Since then, Baars, in collaboration with European and American colleagues, has turned out a significant body of work that links his interests in the social, the existential, and the political. His most recent publication along these lines is the coedited collection Ageing, Meaning and Social Structure: Connecting Critical and Humanistic Gerontology (Baars, Dohmen, Grenier, & Phillipson, 2013). The book under review, Aging and the Art of Living, flows from Baars’s more purely philosophical meditations though critical gerontology and social theory are deftly woven into the arguments put forward. With this landmark book, Baars takes his place among the very few serious

A Guide to humanistic studies in aging: what does it mean to grow old?

This volume explores the moral, spiritual, and cultural terrain of aging through interdisciplinary scholarship and clinically based research. Aging has long been of interest to scholars and practitioners in a vast array of academic fields and professions. Thomas R. Cole, Ruth E. Ray, and Robert Kastenbaum have brought together leaders from a variety of academic realms to explore how aging is depicted in the modern era and the effect of these portrayals on individuals and society. The first section views aging and age through the lenses of four disciplines: history, literature, religion, and philosophy. It probes the idea and effect of age in different places and times in history; discusses the concept as put forth in novels, memoirs, and literary studies and criticism; and raises important existential and spiritual questions about the meaning of growing old. The chapters in the second section demonstrate how interdisciplinary humanities can be applied to the study of aging through such thoughtful queries as: How do creativity and health relate in age? What does old mean in an era of high-tech medicine, and what is our moral obligation to care for elderly persons? Why are friendships of special importance to older people? Section three uses semiotics, cultural analysis, and ideological critiques to identify key social issues related to aging, including the concept of home, ageism and discrimination, and our understanding of aging in the era of globalization. The text closes with Robert Kastenbaum's poignant reflection on his own considerations of meaning and mortality as he journeyed back to health following heart surgery. This comprehensive guide works at the nexus of the humanities and health professions to provide the intellectual rationale, history, and a substantive overview of humanistic gerontology as it has emerged in the United States and Europe.

Golden Years and Silver Screens: Cinematic Representations of Old Age

Several memorable portrayals notwithstanding, most depictions of old age and aging in motion pictures are narrowly stereotypical, doing little justice to the complex and variable phenomena of old age. The following overview discusses the various reasons (cultural, political, economic, etc.) for the glaring paucity of believable, committed, and altogether worthwhile cinematic realizations of old age. The discussion distinguishes between representations of old age in the movies as a communication and social issue and the portrayal of the experience of old age via the cinematic medium and provides support for the latter as a means of enriching both humanistic gerontology and the study of cinema.

Interpretations of Ageing: Perspectives from Humanistic Gerontology

Interpretations of Ageing: Perspectives from Humanistic Gerontology

Qualitative Gerontology

This commentary examines four articles in qualitative and humanistic gerontology, with the purpose of explicating the goals of such work, the criteria that make them exemplary, and the contribution they make to an enriched understanding of aging and old age. Qualitative work, undertaken with its own evaluative criteria, can also challenge understandings gained through quantitative research. For example, by revealing how individuals shape their lives and find meanings, social behavior assumes a complexity often hidden by other forms of research. This commentary suggests that to understand how people experience old age and to develop policy and programmatic responses, it is necessary to ask questions and design research sufficiently robust and varied to explicate the diversity and ambiguity we know exists.

Humanistic Services for the Elderly

Encouraged by radical demographic shifts, limited population growth, redefined male/female roles, and dramatic advances in preventive and medical health care, America is rapidly shifting from being a youth-oriented culture to one wherein the fastest growing segment of the population is the elderly. In the past one hundred years, the total U.S. population has increased by a factor of five, while the over-65 segment has multiplied an astounding eighteen times. Reflecting this shift, a great deal of time, energy, money, and public concern is now being directed toward the needs and potential of the middle and later years of life. Correspondingly, the mental and physical health fields have begun to shift their focus away from the mental and physical needs of a youthful culture to those of a predominantly adult and elder population. At present, however, most medical and counseling services for elders are not focused on eliciting health, joy, and vitality, but instead deal primarily with problem-oriented treatment, therapy, chemical prescription, and pass-the-time activities. Nevertheless, without denying the importance of the more traditional approaches in appropriate situations, numerous new programs are beginning to demonstrate that vitalizing and stress-reducing exercise, interesting and meaningful social interaction programs, nutritional guidance and intergenerational exchange activities can go a long way toward enriching the lives of older adults while simultaneously improving health, well-being and self-esteem. Although this new approach is still in its embryonic stage, it is most generally being identified as "humanistic gerontology" and is based on the underlying belief that aging can be experienced as a full and thoroughly rewarding growth and maturation process, that the later years can bring a unique freedom to learn, explore, and share, unburdened by intense social and economic competition, child rearing responsibilities, and worrisome jobs that frequently absorb enormous amounts of time in the earlier years of life. Inherent in this "humanistic" approach to health care is a deep appreciation for the unity of mind, body, and spirit, a strong emphasis on preventive education and self-responsibility, and the belief that growth, exercise, good nutrition, and meaningful interpersonal involvement are necessary ingredients in the healthy lifestyle. Successful programs of this type include senior exercise classes; foster grandparent programs; oral history projects; elderhostels; emeritus college programs; health maintenance classes; senior center activities; intergenerational communes and communities; involvement in the creative arts such as music, dancing, and painting; peer discussion groups; co-counseling; journal writing; advocacy groups; public lectures and events; activities at Y's and churches and effective media such as the "Over Easy" television show. Certainly no one method or technique will effectively remedy all of the problems of our older population. Yet, it becomes increasingly urgent that just as lifestyles, healthstyles, and aging patterns have changed in the past few decades, so must the helping professions change to become more directly relevant to the unique needs and potentials of our continually expanding elder population. And if the trend toward disease prevention, health promotion, personal growth and self-responsibility continues, it seems increasingly appropriate that more time, energy and money be focused on pursuing those activities, programs, and methodologies that support a humanistically styled, holistic approach to mental and physical health for elders.