Images of Ageing

The contributors in this book discuss images of aging which have come to circulate in the advanced industrial societies today. They address such themes as gender images of aging, images of health, illness and death. We all have a finite life-span. We are born, we get old and we die. Given the universiality of the ageing process, it is remarkable that there is almost a complete absence of study of culture and self-image of the middle aged and old. Images of Ageing: Cultural Representations of Later Life changes this. The contributors discuss images of ageing which have come to circulate in the advanced industrial societies today. They address themes such as: body and self image in everyday interaction; experience and identity on old age; advertising and consumer culture images of the elderly; images of ageing used by Government agencies in health education campaigns; the diversity of historical representations of the elderly; gender images of ageing; images of senility and second childhood; images of health, illness and death.