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Background and Objectives The complexities surrounding aging, dementia, and care are timely issues that transcend beyond institutional boundaries, evincing a critical debate on later life across disciplines. The aim of this study is to offer fresh insights into the intricate paradigms of living and growing older with dementia. The study focuses on the Nobel Prize-winning author Annie Ernaux's memoir  I Remain in Darkness  (1999), which provides a candid account of her mother's journey through dementia from its onset to the gradual decline.  Research Design and Methods This article employs the theoretical frameworks of literary gerontology, illness narratives and life writing to address the challenges of aging, dementia and care that are represented in Ernaux's memoir. It also addresses societal attitudes and stigma associated with aging and dementia by exploring the embarrassment that individuals and families experience when confronted with the deteriorating mental health of their loved ones.  Results Ernaux's memoir explores the nuances of dementia and caregiving within both the familial and institutional context, and sheds light on the complex relationship between a mother and a daughter. Through the act of witnessing, Ernaux embarks on a path of healing, which allows her to confront her past wounds and better navigate the challenges that lie ahead. However, Ernaux's confessional memoir also troubles the ethics of life writing and identity issues, and seems to perpetuate the pathologizing medical gaze through the exposure of her mother's vulnerability and intimacy in the face of dementia and care. Discussion and Implications Ernaux's account of her mother's dementia and aging is both a confessional piece of writing and a narrative therapy, which reveals the challenges of aging, illness, and unresolved family tensions. Her work illuminates the interconnectedness between the past, present, and future, and shows that illness narratives can act as a catalyst for transformative change, identity formation, and self-reflection. The article addresses the intricacies of old age, showcasing how life writing and humanities-based inquiry can bring to the fore key aspects of the latest stages in life, which are often unvoiced because they represent the most unpleasant and feared aspects of aging in contemporary society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article underlines the potential of autoethnography as interdisciplinary qualitative methodology to improve research and pedagogy in critical geragogy. It argues that autoethnography, broadly expanding and yet still only fairly legitimized approach, can serve as an ageism intervention, an act of activism, and sociocultural critique to raise awareness about gender- and age-based discrimination in an adult educational context. First-person representations framed within autoethnography allow for expression of the ways in which ageism can be experienced in academic and educational environments as well as in more mundane and private settings. Autoethnographical writing also has the power to question prevailing frames of thinking, subverts dominant discourses and 'subjugated knowledges,' and allows for plausible solutions to current and future challenges in adult education and later life. Exposing and defying stereotypical notions of aging can positively alter the social milieu, community well-being, and quality of life of older individuals. Autoethnography also helps reveal many unvoiced aspects about lifelong learning, gender dynamics, and the intricacies of aging, and move beyond traditional empirical and disciplinary boundaries. Critical insider views of scholars, students, and professionals involved in adult education, social work, and gerontology programmes can help foster new interdisciplinary knowledge and ameliorate their research, learning processes, and teaching practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on Erica Jong's and her fictional characters' travel experiences in Venice, which is portrayed as a carefree and sensual destination. Jong demonstrates how female solo travelling can help challenge unequal gender roles, explore female sexuality regardless of one's age, and rewrite the narratives of the Grand Tour. However, in her later works, the depiction of Venice transitions from a glorification of its charm to portraying it as a seductive place of decadence. The dichotomy between beauty and decay becomes a reminder of the passage of time and the inevitability of constant changes. While Jong and her heroines defy the centuries-long and idealised cultural heritage of Venice by moving beyond its common association with male desire, they also reveal that ephemeral love affairs can lead to emotional disillusionment. They also become potential targets of the leisure tourism industry and romanticised discourses that continue to influence contemporary travel expectations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An increasing growth of older people has caused significant socioeconomic transformations for almost all sectors of society, including the tourism industry. In the last decades, older adults have become an important target group for the leisure tourism market on a global scale. It is estimated that older individuals, especially the representatives of the baby-boom generation, will be responsible for a relatively large share of all holiday spending, and that senior tourism will become the fastest and biggest potential driving force in the hospitality markets. Yet, senior tourism is still a marginal branch in aging and tourism studies. This article aims to address this gap by highlighting the complex nexus of recreational later-life mobility, active engagement and successful aging. It interrogates whether the senior tourism market liberates and empowers older adults, or further perpetuates age-related inequalities and reinforces consumerist pressures and the ideals of a good old age. To answer this question, it sheds light on the positive aspects of leisure travels in later life, such as an enhanced sense of well-being, happiness and psychological health. As a counterargument, the article shows how the senior leisure market, constructed around neoliberal Western notions of successful aging, further deepens discrimination among older adults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Objectives This article addresses the representations of dementia and caregiving in the fourth age as depicted in Erica Jong's later-life work. It shows how the experience of parental care leads to the discovery of new ways of human interaction and expressions of personhood. Research Design and Methods Framed within literary–cultural age studies, this article shows how humanities-based inquiry can illuminate important aspects of aging and care of the oldest old, which are significant and revealing, but often hidden under the dark shadow of dementia. Results Newly discovered ways of communication challenge the notion of the loss of agency as they demonstrate that the body itself has the power of creative and intentional capacities and self-expression. Discussion and Implications Care-related narratives offer new insights into aging, dementia, and subjectivity that can help pursue a better analysis of the "deep" old age, strengthen collective solidarity, and manage increasing ageism, especially pronounced during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking a life-course perspective, this article considers the intersections of creativity, memory, and ageing in Erica Jong's middle and later works, and explores underlying changes in the author's self-perception as a writer. It demonstrates the substitution of Jong's initial "fear of writing" by increased self-knowledge, courage to speak her mind, and gradual capacity to ignore negative criticism in later years. Although her later life works and her most recent personal accounts reveal that ageing does not render the creative process easier, in Jong's case the act of life writing becomes fearless with age. An examination of the relationship between memory processes and the narrative construction of a sense of self through the act of writing demonstrates how the writer becomes more self-assured, grounded, and mature over time, which challenges the pervasive narrative of decline and helps to better understand the complex realities of ageing and the artistic achievements of older adults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is concerned with the issue of ageism and its salience in current debates about the COVID-19 pandemic. In it, we address the question of how best to interpret the impact that the pandemic has had on the older population. While many feel angry at what they see as discriminatory lock-down practices confining older people to their homes, others are equally concerned by the failure of state responses to protect and preserve the health of older people, especially those receiving long-term care. This contrast in framing ageist responses to the pandemic, we suggest, arises from differing social representations of later life, reflecting the selective foregrounding of third versus fourth age imaginaries. Recognising the tension between social and biological parameters of ageing and its social categorisations, we suggest, may offer a more measured, as well as a less discriminatory, approach to addressing the selective use of chronological age as a line of demarcation within society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The figure of the superhero has always been regarded as an iconic representative of American society. Since the birth of the first superhero, it has been shaped by the most important historical, political, and social events, which were echoed in different comic issues. In principle, in the superhero genre, there has never been a place for aging superheroes, for they stand as a symbol of power and protection for the nation. Indeed, their mythical portrayal of young and strong broad-chested men with superpowers cannot be shattered showing them fragile or disabled. The aim of this article is to delve into the complex paradigm of the passage of time in comics and to analyze one of the most famous superheroes of all times, Superman, in terms of his archetypical representation across time. From the perspective of cultural and literary gerontology, the different issues of Action Comics will be examined, as well as an alternative graphic novel Kingdom Come (2008) by Mark Waid and Alex Ross, where Superman appears as an aged man. Although it breaks the standards of the genre, in the end it does not succeed to challenge the many stereotypes embedded in society in regard to aging, associated with physical, cognitive, and emotional decline. Furthermore, this article will show how a symbolic use of the monomythical representation of a superhero may penetrate into other cultural expressions to instill a more positive and realistic portrayal of aging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Objectives: Although the model of successful aging is already well discussed and has received considerable critical responses, its intersection with the growing enthusiasm for creative engagement among older adults needs further exploration. This article contributes to the growing literature on later-life creativity by examining its relationship with the discourse of successful aging., Research Design and Methods: The study employs critical humanities-based perspectives and the literature on later-life to address creativity in older age within contemporary neoliberal imperatives., Results: While successful aging is as an antithesis to the narrative of decline, it often fails to capture alternative meanings of aging and the creative engagement in later life. The commercialization and commodification of creativity often function to discipline individuals towards a culture of productivity, optimization, and innovation. However, many older individuals challenge these notions as they create their own models of aging well and authentically that do not align with the ideals of successful aging., Discussion and Implications: Reductionist, individualistic, and capital-driven understandings of later-life creativity can be broadened by employing critical interdisciplinary approaches, which also help rethink the current meanings of old age and aging. The article will be of interest to scholars, policymakers, artists, and practitioners in gerontological scholarship and the humanities., (© The Author(s) 2024. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological Society of America. All rights reserved. For commercial re-use, please contact reprints@oup.com for reprints and translation rights for reprints. All other permissions can be obtained through our RightsLink service via the Permissions link on the article page on our site—for further information please contact journals.permissions@oup.com.)