As part of The Sciences of Ageing and the Culture of Youth, we have entered pre-production for a research-based feature film, Coming of Age, with Lifelong Films Ltd. Josh Appignanesi and Devorah Baum have written the script; Emily Everdee and Sam Buckler have joined as producer and co-producer. Delighted to act as executive producer.
Tag Archives: ageing
Literature and Science in the Public Sphere
Delighted to have been invited to contribute to a special issue of Public Humanities, on Literature and Science in the Public Sphere, edited by John Holmes, Jenni G Halpin and Aura Heydenreich. My article explores ‘Cognitive augmentation in speculative writing’.
Rethinking Ageing: The Film
This short film is a co-production with Reuben &Co (and animations by Camille Aubry) arising from The Sciences of Ageing and the Culture of Youth (SAACY). SAACY project partners featuring in this film are Age UK, Brixton Windmill, Centre for Ageing Better, and InCommon. Rethinking Ageing was filmed on location, at Lambeth Town Assembly Hall, in November 2024.
An Agenda for the Medical Humanities and Ageing
Embedded in a historical account of the relation of the medical humanities to ageing, and an account of the history of age studies, this article asserts that the medical humanities need to invest their discipline-crossing capacity and knowledge base in ageing. They need to integrate the biological reality of ageing into their descriptive practices and accept biomedicine as a constructive agent in their future work on ageing. Published in the journal History of the Human Sciences, the article is available open access.
Shifting Representations of Ageing in the Media
Our second SAACY Policy Report, Shifting Representations of Ageing in Advertising, the Media, and the Creative Industries, is published! We identify opportunity for media content to be more intergenerational, and for it to be developed by age-diverse teams, and we list systemic opportunities for change, drawing upon regulation, funding, data and education-based strategies. The report was launched in the House of Lords on 13 May 2025, hosted by The Rt Hon. The Lord Foulkes of Cumnock, co-chair of the APPG for Ageing and Older People.
Lifelines: Rethinking Ageing across Generations
A free exhibition at Science Gallery London, invites people of all ages to consider ageing as a lifelong process, rather than a phase of decline that happens towards the end of life. Open 29 May until 2 August 2025.
Offering an open space for conversations across generations and complete with film, objects, photographs and animations highlighting our shared human experiences, Lifelines prompts the visitor to address how inequalities impact health and quality of life in older age, and to consider what we can learn from one another. It assures us that together, we can creatively rethink ageing, embracing and preparing for the challenges, joys, and surprises of getting older.
Literature and Science Forum
Delighted to have been invited to speak in the Winter Series: Medical and Digital Humanities of the Literature and Science Forum – about a narrative approach to changing how we think about ageing.
Breaking down barriers to opportunity
A great pleasure to have joined a panel at the Annual Conference of the Foundation for Science and Technology to discuss one of the five missions of the newly elected government. Topics covered seniority and mentoring, opportunities for older people in the workforce and more.
Save the date for the 2025 Conference of SLSAeu, European Society for Literature, Science and the Arts, 4-6 June 2025
SAACY will host the 2025 SLSAeu annual conference, ‘The Lifespan: Perspectives on Ageing and the Life Course from the Medical Humanities, the Health Sciences and Age Studies’.
The three-day conference will be held at King’s College London. We hope to provide limited hybrid options with a strong preference for papers to be presented in person. We are keen to foster conversations across disciplines within individual panels, encouraging contributions on lifespan/lifecourse approaches to ageing from disciplines such as Anthropology, Cultural Studies, Dementia Studies, Disability Studies, Epidemiology, Evolutionary Science and Medicine, Gender Studies, Geriatrics, Gerontology, Health Economics, Languages and Literatures, Narrative Medicine, Neuroscience, Philosophy, Postgenomic Sciences, Psychiatry, and Public Health.
The Call for Papers and further information on fees and bursaries will be circulated soon.
Confirmed plenary speakers and round table discussants include:
Sally Chivers, Trent University, Canada
Ulrike Draesner, Leipzig University, Germany
Des O’Neill, Trinity College Dublin, Republic of Ireland
Susan Pickard, University of Liverpool, UK
Oliver Robinson, Imperial College London, UK
Kavita Sivaramakrishnan, Columbia University, USA
Aagje Swinnen, Maastricht University, Netherlands
SAACY at InCommon
Delighted to have been invited to speak at an InCommon Lunch and Learn event about the Policy Report, Shifting How We View the Ageing Process, which summarises the Themes for Actions and Next Steps explored during a Policy Lab held in the framework of my research programme on The Sciences of Ageing and the Culture of Youth, funded by a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship.
Martina Zimmermann 