Palgrave Handbook of Literature and Aging

This handbook offers a comprehensive survey of the growing field of literary age studies and points to new directions in scholarly research. Divided into four sections, the volume reflects the current conversations in the field: intersections and intersectionalities, traveling concepts, methodological innovations, and archival inquiries. It encompasses the spectrum of critical approaches that literary age studies scholars employ, from environmental studies and postcolonial theory to critical race theory and queer studies. While close reading continues to be a mainstay of literary criticism, the handbook highlights alternative tools and routes in both data elicitation and analysis. The final part of the book shows the burgeoning interest in the field from literary scholars across historical periods, extending the scope of literary age studies beyond contemporary texts. This is an essential reference work for advanced students and scholars of literary studies, gerontology, age/aging studies, interdisciplinary studies and cultural studies.

Valerie Barnes Lipscomb is Professor of English at the University of South Florida, USA. She is author of Performing Age in Modern Drama (2016) and lead editor of Staging Age: The Performance of Age in Theatre, Dance, and Film (2010). Lipscomb’s articles on age and drama have appeared in such journals as Modern Drama, the Journal of Aging Studies, the International Journal of Ageing and Later Life, and Age, Culture, Humanities. She also regularly presents papers at international and national conferences on literature, theatre, and age studies. Lipscomb has chaired the Executive Committee of the Modern Language Association Age Studies Forum and is Treasurer of the North American Network in Aging Studies. Aagje Swinnen is Professor of Aging Studies at Maastricht University, the Netherlands. Her co-edited volumes in English include Interdisciplinarity in the Scholarly Life Cycle; Engaged Humanities; Popularizing Dementia; and Aging, Performance, and Stardom. She has published on representations of age and its intersections with gender, sexuality, and disability in literature, photography, and film; meanings of literary interventions in dementia care; and ways in which professional artists understand creativity in the later stages of their career in journals such as the Journal of Aging Studies, The Gerontologist, Dementia, Ageing & Society, and Feminist Media Studies. Swinnen is co-founder and former chair of the European Network in Aging Studies as well as co-editor of the open access journal Age, Culture, Humanities. She currently serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Aging Studies and Dementia.