https://tidsskrift.dk/ageculturehumanities <p><em>Age, Culture, Humanities: An Interdisciplinary Journal</em> is <em>the</em> humanities and arts journal that publishes scholarship on topics that investigate the critical intersections of the arts and humanities with the aging process and with age across the lifespan. </p> University of Southern Denmark en-US Age, Culture, Humanities: An Interdisciplinary Journal 2373-5481 <p>From issue 6 (2022) onward, the journal uses the CC Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 license. The authors retain their copyright. For articles published in previous issues (1,2,3,4 and 5) the authors retain their copyright to their articles. Readers can download, read, and link to the articles published in issues 1-5, but they cannot republish these articles. Authors can upload them in their institutional repositories.</p> <p> </p> <p> </p> https://tidsskrift.dk/ageculturehumanities/article/view/144780 <p style="font-weight: 400;">This interview is part of the forum “Too old for the job? The 2024 US American Presidential Elections<em>."</em> It was recorded on April 10, 2024, transcribed with <em>otter.ai</em>, and edited for clarity by Ashton Applewhite. An audio version is available <strong><a href="https://tidsskrift.dk/ageculturehumanities/libraryFiles/downloadPublic/193">here</a></strong>.</p> Anita Wohlmann Ashton Applewhite Copyright (c) 2024 Anita Wohlmann; Ashton Applewhite https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0 2024-04-15 2024-04-15 8 10.7146/ageculturehumanities.v8i.144780 https://tidsskrift.dk/ageculturehumanities/article/view/144464 <p style="font-weight: 400;">“For Voters, When Does Old Become Too Old?”: this question heads the February 9, 2024 subscriber-only piece by Nate Cohn in <em>The New York Times</em> referring to the presumptive presidential contest in the U.S. between Joseph Biden and Donald Trump. The answer? “Polling shows it’s a broad concern expressed about President Biden, not just one person’s opinion.” Cohn’s piece, which prompted 1236 comments that very day (they constitute my dataset for this reflection), is only one in an avalanche in the news and on social media in the U.S. and beyond that provides us with a window into attitudes toward aging in general and aging in relation to the American presidency in particular. </p> Kathleen Woodward Copyright (c) 2024 Kathleen Woodward https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0 2024-04-17 2024-04-17 8 10.7146/ageculturehumanities.v8i.144464 https://tidsskrift.dk/ageculturehumanities/article/view/144508 Margaret Morganroth Gullette Copyright (c) 2024 Margaret Morganroth Gullette https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0 2024-04-19 2024-04-19 8 10.7146/ageculturehumanities.v8i.144508 https://tidsskrift.dk/ageculturehumanities/article/view/145209 <p>During a February surprise appearance on <em>Late Night with Seth Meyers</em>, President Joe Biden whipped out his trademark aviator sunglasses and traded quips with Meyers about a supposed conspiracy with Taylor Swift, much to the delight of the younger live audience. The next day, reviews were mixed about whether the president was trying too hard or did in fact manage to look hipper. To look younger. While US presidential nominees have been consciously performing their campaigns for decades, during this cycle, considering age as a performance has been especially prominent. Commentators and critics have specifically addressed the careful staging of persona that is central to presidential politics but is not always acknowledged as such.</p> Valerie Barnes Lipscomb Copyright (c) 2024 Anita Wohlmann; Valerie Barnes Lipscomb https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0 2024-05-23 2024-05-23 8 10.7146/ageculturehumanities.v8i.145209 https://tidsskrift.dk/ageculturehumanities/article/view/146460 <p>The U.S. presidential elections have been the site of racism, sexism, classism, ableism, and ageism among other problematic issues. While the 2024 U.S. presidential election continues to be fraught with numerous “isms” and accusations, the focus in this essay is on a new and powerful discrediting tactic: the whisper of cognitive decline. Accusations of cognitive decline not only cast doubt on a politician’s ability to think and act clearly—an unpardonable sin in leadership—but also builds on ageist stereotypes that make such accusations seem credible despite evidence. Ultimately, I argue that because Donald Trump and Joe Biden are wealthy, white, educated men of roughly similar ages, seventy-seven and eighty-one respectively, targeting their cognitive status feeds into social stigmas and fears that are difficult to counter and that, unfortunately, the harm caused by this new level of attack negatively affects older people and people living with neurocognitive disorders.</p> Kate de Medeiros Copyright (c) 2024 Kate de Medeiros https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0 2024-06-04 2024-06-04 8 10.7146/ageculturehumanities.v8i.146460 https://tidsskrift.dk/ageculturehumanities/article/view/146457 <p>At age eighty-one, Joe Biden is the oldest president in U.S. history. Donald Trump, his predecessor, held the same status during his term in office. When the next chief executive is inaugurated on January 20, 2025, Biden will be eightytwo years old and Trump seventy-eight. Whoever wins will be the oldest president in history. No wonder that age figures prominently in the presidential election campaign of 2024.</p> Jørn Brøndal Copyright (c) 2024 Jørn Brøndal https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0 2024-06-06 2024-06-06 8 10.7146/ageculturehumanities.v8i.146457 https://tidsskrift.dk/ageculturehumanities/article/view/146878 <p>When Anita Wohlmann and Aagje Swinnen invited me to write a commentary on age and ageism in the upcoming 2024 American presidential election, I was entranced by the idea. As a Canadian, I have watched with fascination the dramas of American elections from the front row of our international border, beginning with the 1960 debates between Democrat John F. Kennedy and Republican Richard M. Nixon, the first on TV. Both were experienced politicians. Kennedy was a senator and Nixon had been Vice President under Dwight Eisenhower for eight years, thus expected to be debate winner and next President. But TV was not kind to him. Kennedy appeared fit, handsome, charismatic, camera friendly, and most importantly, much younger than Nixon, who was awkward, uncomfortable, hesitant, and sweaty (also recovering from a knee injury). Both were in their forties, Nixon only five years older than Kennedy (see Kraus, 1977).</p> Stephen Katz W. Andrew Achenbaum Copyright (c) 2024 Stephen Katz, W. Andrew Achenbaum https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0 2024-06-21 2024-06-21 8 10.7146/ageculturehumanities.v8i.146878 https://tidsskrift.dk/ageculturehumanities/article/view/144820 Anita Wohlmann Aagje Swinnen Copyright (c) 2024 Anita Wohlmann; Aagje Swinnen https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0 2024-04-16 2024-04-16 8 10.7146/ageculturehumanities.v8i.144820 https://tidsskrift.dk/ageculturehumanities/article/view/145935 Anna Stanton Copyright (c) 2024 João Guimarães https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0 2024-06-24 2024-06-24 8