Alive and Kicking at All Ages ─ Cultural Constructions of Health and Life Course Identity

The linking of age and ill-health is part of a cultural narrative of decline as age is often defined as the absence of good health. Research has shown that we are aged by culture, but we are also culturally made ill when we age. The cultural ambiguity of aging can thus deconstruct negative images of old age as physical decrepitude. This volume investigates the topic of health within the matrix of time and experience by addressing issues such as how our understanding of health influences our notion of agency within a subversive deconstruction of normative age concepts, and what role the notion of health plays in such an interaction.

Ulla Kriebernegg (Dr.) is assistant professor at the Center for Inter-American Studies at the University of Graz, Austria, where she teaches North American Literature and Cultural Studies. Roberta Maierhofer (Dr.) is professor at the Center for Inter-American Studies at the University of Graz, Austria. Barbara Ratzenbock is a research assistant at the Center for Inter-American Studies at the University of Graz, Austria.