As part of The Sciences of Ageing and the Culture of Youth, we had run a Policy Lab together with the Policy Institute at King’s in Autumn 2022. The one-day workshop had brought together academic researchers from a range of disciplines, practicing clinicians, people with lived experience and representatives from the care sector, charities and the policy world to explore how valuable, feasible and acceptable it would be to shift how we view the ageing process. Read the full Policy Report here.
Category Archives: Health Humanities
REMIND: Esperienze e memorie reali nella cura
Delighted to have been invited to contribute the concluding remarks, ‘L’esperienza dell’Alzheimer: una vista differenziata e collettiva’ [The full view of the lived experience of Alzheimer’s disease], to a study on ‘Real experiences and memories in care: Narrating dementia in Alzheimer’s disease’, led by Maria Giulia Marini at ISTUD, Milan. This study brings together three perspectives, that of people with a diagnosis of dementia, that of their family members and that of healthcare professionals. In bringing these voices together, this study and the book resulting from it establish the framework for an ‘ecosystem’ for the wellbeing of all involved, based on the principle that each party learns of the others’ anxieties, limitations, aspirations and hopes in the confrontation with dementia.
Writing successful ageing?
My contribution to the Bloomsbury Handbook to Ageing in Contemporary Literature and Film (Bloomsbury, 2023; edited by Sarah Falcus, Heike Hartung and Raquel Medina) explores the connection between ageing and illness. ‘Writing successful ageing? The aches and pains of illness narrative and life review’ analyses how the expectations for older people created by the concept of successful ageing reveal themselves in prominent life writing. The chapter looks at the role of illness in older age in directing self-perceptions and self-representations of ageing as failure. It also considers different narrative forms and frames in life writing, the diary as compared to the life review, and their possibilities and limitations in articulating ageing as successful.
Making Ageing and Dementia Studies Matter outside the Academy
At the 8th Arts and Humanities Research Council Fellows Conference, one of the panels focused on ‘Developing careers in the arts and humanities’. I contributed with a presentation that explored tensions between research, and impact and engagement activities, based on my experiences of currently running a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship funded research programme on ageing, The Sciences of Ageing and the Culture of Youth.
Grappling with the biological reality of ageing
In June 2023, I delivered an invited seminar in the School of Lifecourse and Population Health Sciences at King’s. Lively discussion about the barriers to accepting material changes of the body that come with ageing.
SAACY Lifelong Ageing conference 17th May 2023
A rewarding day of conversations across sectors and disciplines about ageing as a lifelong process. Thanks to Camille Aubry for this illustration of a productive SAACY conference at Science Gallery London.
Life Narratives and the Biological Reality of Ageing
In March 2023, I was invited to deliver a seminar at Trinity College Dublin. The hybrid seminar was part of the Medical and Health Humanities Seminar Series in association with Trinity Long Room Hub. It examined the role of illness in older age in directing self-perceptions and self-representations of ageing as failure, and considered different forms of life narratives and their possibilities and limitations in articulating ageing as a biological reality. You can listen to a podcast of the seminar following this link.
Engaging with Government Programme
In February 2023, I attended the brilliant Engaging with Government Programme run by the Institute for Government and funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council; invaluable for reflecting on opportunities for arts and humanities researchers to inform policy making.
Interview about the UKRI FLF Scheme
Follow this link for an interview with the King’s Arts and Sciences Research Office Bulletin, in which I shared information about the UK Research and Innovation Future Leaders Fellowship scheme.
Lifelong Ageing
Our Lifelong Ageing workshop as part of SAACY brings together ECRs taking a lifecourse perspective of ageing with interested participants from local and national charities and third sector organisations. Check out our call for papers.
