Here’s the grounded theory study protocol of the ongoing sociological investigation that is part of the SAACY research programme. Our study invites adults aged 50-80 years old with different backgrounds and experiences to take part in interviews and focus groups to explore and discuss what ageing means to them. ‘Older adults’ perspectives, experiences, and expectations of ageing in England: A grounded theory study protocol’ is published in the open access journal Social Science Protocols, hosted by Edinburgh Diamond.
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.
Books Beyond Words book launch
A pleasure to attend the Books Beyond Words book launch held by Baroness Hollins at the House of Lords. Books Beyond Words are picture stories that help people with learning disabilities explore feelings and experiences. Look out for the charity’s BBC Radio 4 Appeal on Easter Sunday.
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.
Annie Ernaux in the Poetics and Politics of Alzheimer’s Disease Life-Writing
Delighted to learn that Annie Ernaux has been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature 2022 ‘for the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements and collective restraint of personal memory’. I discuss Ernaux’s writing about her mother with dementia in my first book, The Poetics and Politics of Alzheimer’s Disease Life-Writing (2017). The book is free to download thanks to Wellcome Trust funded open access.
‘Exhausting, frustrating and lonely’
In July this year, the Founder Trustee of the Pam Britton Trust for Dementia in Warwickshire, Tony Britton, and I had a joint paper published in the journal Dementia: the international journal of social research and practice. Here’s the press release about the paper.
Literature and Dementia Care
The title of the plenary lecture I delivered at the Symposium on Ethics, Agency, and Personhood in Dementia at the University of Southern Denmark, Copenhagen, in August 2022, reflecting on how particular genres, narrative perspectives and tropes may or may not be productive for an enabling approach to the person with dementia and their care. Great to join Marlene Goldman, Ina Kjogx Pedersen and Peter Simonsen for a panel discussion, moderated by Cindie Maagaard, on the use of narrative medicine in dementia care.
Martina Zimmermann 