by Anne Basting
Add: A globally aging population. Technology that seeks to prolong life and eradicate aging. Media that sells the desire for youth. Soaring healthcare costs. A generation entering late life that was raised to raise their voices.
Blend.
When I was 26 and decided that I wanted to go into the field of aging as an arts/humanities scholar and writer, I knew in my guts this field was interesting and only getting more so. My dissertation advisors cautioned me — and rightly so! There is no FIELD per se of the humanities and aging. We are an odd interdisciplinary group of folks who buck the academic division of disciplines and insist on the importance of thinking about aging. We come from philosophy, performance studies, history, english, economics, sociology, architecture, social work, and psychology – just to name a few.
And in this blog space, we bring to you our thoughts on aging – how we see it, understand it, and experience it.
The new JAHA journal is where the more traditional conversation is happening. This blog is a little less formal, a little more inter-active, and a little quicker to respond to what’s happening in the moment.
I’ll be appearing regularly here, along with our current roster of bloggers: Rick Moody, Stephen Katz, Andrea Sherman, Ruth Ray, Tom Cole, Susan McFadden, Peter Whitehouse, and Jesse Ballenger.
