Putting Age in its Place

How are long-term residential care and the construction of late-life identities connected in North American film and fiction? Through close readings of works by Margaret Atwood, Joan Barfoot, Oscar Casares, John Mighton, and several others, Ulla Kriebernegg explores how the setting at the nexus of home, hospital, hotel, and prison functions in the newly emerging genre of the care home novel. What role does this setting play for the narrative construction of old age, and what hopes and fears are revealed? Kriebernegg argues that the spatiality of aging needs to be included into discussions of late life agency and care in the face of vulnerability.

Autorentext

Ulla Kriebernegg is the director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Research on Aging and Care (CIRAC) and an associate professor of American Studies at Universität Graz in Austria. In her research and teaching she focuses on North American literary and cultural studies, aging and care studies, and health humanities. She has taught internationally and has won several teaching and research awards.