Polarizing Uses of Older Age

Introducing the Forum “Too Old for the Job?”

Authors

  • Anita Wohlmann SDU

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7146/ageculturehumanities.v8i.147380

Abstract

The Forum in Issue 8 of Age, Culture, Humanities is dedicated to the timely topic of the 2024 US American presidential elections, where the role of older age has loomed over the campaign. We invited distinguished colleagues from the USA, Canada, and Denmark to contribute short comments and reflections from an age studies perspective. Eight of them accepted, despite the short deadline, and their essays were published in instalments from mid-April to mid-July 2024. 

In this introduction, I expand on one topic that popped up again and again, namely the polarizing tendencies many observed in the current discourse. I ask:  What is the role of age in the context of polarization?

References

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Gilleard, Chris, and Paul Higgs, “Third and Fourth Ages,” The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Health, Illness, Behavior, and Society, edited by William C. Cockerham, Robert Dingwall, and Stella Quah. Chichester, UK, 2014, 1-7. doi:10.1002/9781118410868.wbehibs139.

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Völz, Johannes and Tom Freischläger, “Towards an Aesthetic of Populism, Part II: The Aesthetics of Polarization,” REAL: Yearbook of Research in English and American Literature, 35, 2019, 261-286.

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Published

2024-07-07

How to Cite

Wohlmann, A. . “Polarizing Uses of Older Age: Introducing the Forum ‘Too Old for the Job?’”. Age, Culture, Humanities: An Interdisciplinary Journal, vol. 8, July 2024, doi:10.7146/ageculturehumanities.v8i.147380.