Research project #6
Aging and Gender in Contemporary
Literary Creativity in English
FFI2012-37050
Financed by the Spanish Ministry
of Economy and Competitivity
This research
project is based on the following premises:
- Since the
so-called 'longevity revolution' that began in the second
half of the 20th century, and above all based on new
models of aging observed in developed societies in the
21st century, aging has become a field of study which
attracts more and more researchers from different
disciplines. This tendency coincides with the EU's
declaration of 2012 as the European Year of Active Aging.
However, in spite of the obvious scientific, social and
cultural changes in the aging process, among the general
public and in the mass media we continue to observe the
perpetration of negative prejudices which affect elderly
people and which obstruct a true transformation of aging
into an ‘active’ phase and into a process of
growth, as have demonstrated some pioneering studies
(Bytheway 1995) and more recent ones (Kriebernegg et al.,
2012).
- Many of the stereotyped perceptions of aging affect
especially elderly women who, moreover, continue to
represent an important group within the aging population.
In their case, the age-related prejudices are compounded
with those generated by sexual inequality, in addition to
the resulting negative constructions that define gender
identity (Greer 1992, de Beauvoir 1996, Calasanti 2006).
- As is being recognised from fields such as gerontology
and sociology, literary studies offer a unique field of
research through which both types of discrimination can
be tackled and which allow, at the same time, the
construction of a new way of approaching the biological
process from its multiple socio-cultural manifestations
(Munson and Lenker 1999, Hepworth 2000, Gullette 2004).
However, especially in Spain, to date there has not been
a study which observes the way in which aging and gender
specificity interact in the literary works of aged women
writers, and which enquires at the same time into works
of literary creation that contribute to the questioning
of negative constructions and stereotypes of aging and to
the emphasizing of the heterogeneity that characterizes
the experience of aging. With this revision of
traditional, negative and homogenizing constructs, an
extensive range of representations of aging is opened up,
representations that may be extrapolated and propagated
in wider sectors of the present-day population.
- Taking these complementary hypotheses as a point of
departure, this project will analyse the effects deriving
from longevity and gender identity through the study of a
number of contemporary women authors with an
international dimension who have continued to write in
their over-60s. In particular, our research will centre
on the late writing of American, British and Irish women
authors representative of advanced and aging societies
like our own and it will seek an answer to questions such
as: What changes in the writing process of a woman author
in her late age? Are thematic or formal changes observed
which may also contribute to a new phase of
experimentation in late age? Up to what point can these
changes differ from those presented in the work of men
writers of similar age and situation? In what way can
literary creation modify individual and socio-cultural
perceptions of the women writers' identity as a woman in
late age? Beyond the literary field, our project will
seek to undermine stereotypes of passivity which often
have been associated with late-aging and with women. For
this reason, our research will also be useful in other
fields of study, such as gerontology, psychology and
sociology, and in each of these disciplines from the
perspective of gender studies.
Authors and their works under study:
1) dleon
- Donna Leon
2) asbyatt
- A.S. Byatt
3) sgrafton
- Sue Grafton
4) dlessing
- Doris Lessing
5) dmaurier
- Daphne du Maurier
6) plively
- Penelope Lively
7) johnston
- Jennifer Johnston
8) clelland
- Joanna McClelland Glass
9) erijong
- Erica Jong
10) irmkurtz - Irma Kurtz