As the 'grey market' perpetuates the quest for eternal youth, the biological realities of deep old age are increasingly denied. Ageing and Popular Culture traces the historical emergence of stereotypes of retirement and documents their recent demise, arguing that although modernisation, marginalisation, and medicalisation created rigid age classifications, the rise of consumer culture has coincided with a postmodern broadening of options for those in the Third Age. With an adroit use of photographs and other visual sources, Andrew Blaikie demonstrates that an expanded leisure phase is breaking down barriers between mid and later life. At the same time, 'positive ageing' also creates new imperatives and new norms with attendant forms of deviance. While babyboomers may anticipate a fulfilling retirement, none relish decline. Has deep old age replaced death as the taboo subject of the late twentieth century? If so, what might be the consequences?

How has popular film, television and fiction responded to the realities of an ageing Western population? This volume analyses this field of representation to argue that, while celebrations of ageing as an inspirational journey are increasing, most depictions still focus on decline and deterioration.

This timely collection engages with representations of women and ageing in literature and visual culture. Acknowledging that cultural conceptions of ageing are constructed and challenged across a variety of media and genres, the editors bring together experts in literature and visual culture to foster a dialogue across disciplines. Exploring the process of ageing in its cultural reflections, refractions and reimaginings, the contributors to Ageing Women in Literature and Visual Culture analyse how artists, writers, directors and performers challenge, and in some cases reaffirm, cultural constructions of ageing women, as well as give voice to ageing women’s subjectivities. The book concludes with an afterword by Germaine Greer which suggests possible avenues for future research.

This book studies the relationship between women, ageing and celebrity. Focusing on an array of case studies and star/celebrity images, it aims to examine the powerful, contradictory and sometimes celebratory ways in which celebrity culture offers a crucial site for the contemporary and historical construction of discourses on ageing femininities.

Documenting the evolution of teens and media from the 1950s through 2010, this book examines the films, books, television shows, and musical artists that impacted American culture and shaped the "coming of age" experience for each generation. The teenage years are fraught with drama and emotional ups and downs, coinciding with bewildering new social situations and sexual tension. For these reasons, pop culture and media have repeatedly created entertainment that depicts, celebrates, or lampoons coming of age experiences, through sitcoms like The Wonder Years to the brat pack films of the 1980s to the teen-centered television series of today. Coming of Age in Popular Culture: Teenagers, Adolescence, and the Art of Growing Up covers a breadth of media presentations of the transition from childhood to adulthood from the 1950s to the year 2010. It explores the ways that adolescence is characterized in pop culture by drawing on these representations, shows how powerful media and entertainment are in establishing societal norms, and considers how American society views and values adolescence. Topics addressed include race relations, gender roles, religion, and sexual identity. Young adult readers will come away with a heightened sense of media literacy through the examination of a topic that inherently interests them.

Later years are changing under the impact of demographic, social and cultural shifts. No longer confined to the sphere of social welfare, they are now studied within a wider cultural framework that encompasses new experiences and new modes of being. Drawing on influences from the arts and humanities, and deploying diverse methodologies – visual, literary, spatial – and theoretical perspectives Cultural Gerontology has brought new aspects of later life into view. This major new publication draws together these currents including: Theory and Methods; Embodiment; Identities and Social Relationships; Consumption and Leisure; and Time and Space. Based on specially commissioned chapters by leading international authors, the Routledge Handbook of Cultural Gerontology will provide concise authoritative reviews of the key debates and themes shaping this exciting new field.

The International Handbook of Population Aging examines research on a wide array of the profound implications of population aging. It demonstrates how the world is changing through population aging, and how demography is changing in response to it.

This volume of essays derives from a memorable interdisciplinary symposium. At issue were various fundamental questions about the nature of Dutch sixteenth-and seventeenth-century society that fall under three broad categories: civic culture, art, and religion. The fourteen papers presented in this volume offer a number of fascinating insights into these and other questions that, taken together, greatly enrich our perception and understanding of this rich and varied society.

Across more than 30 chapters spanning migration, queerness, and climate change, this handbook captures how the interdisciplinary and intersectional endeavor of Age(ing) studies has shaped contemporary literary and film studies. In the early 21st century, the literary study of age and ageing in its cultural context has 'come of age': it has come to supplement and challenge a public discourse on ageing seen mainly as a political and demographic 'problem' in many countries of the world. Following a tripartite structure, it looks first at literary and film genres and how they have been shaped by knowledge about age and ageing, incorporating both narrative genres as well as poetry, drama and imagery. The second section includes chapters on key themes and concepts in Age(ing) Studies with examples from film and literature. The third section brings together case studies focussing on individual artists, national traditions and global ageing. Containing original contributions by pioneers in the field as well as new scholars from across the globe, it brings together current scholarship on ageing in literary and film studies, and offers new directions and perspectives.