Comments: Adriana Bebiano (CES/FLUC)
 

About

The emergence of a new interdisciplinary area of ageing studies is both an urgent response to inequality and a cultural and political reflection on a large and active group of people in any contemporary society. In the context of recent scandals of abuse and violence against women, as well as the revival of rampant machismo, it is women of any age who require our special attention.

Already in the article "The Double Standard of Living" published in the Saturday Review in 1972, Susan Sontag denounced the double and hypocritical division between men and women in the supposed "ageing phase". Doubly invisible, with bodies that "could not" be represented in the visual arts, women were erased from public discourse and representations, most often at the moment that coincided with their menopause. Sontag wrote that "Society has always been more permissive towards men and their ageing than towards women", who were obligatorily rendered invisible, grey and useless, curiously being a social group whose longevity is much greater than that of men.

Julia Twigg argues that both gender and age are but social structures created by society, something also advocated by philosopher and feminist Judith Butler. Butler, the author of Gender Trouble and Precarious Life, among many other works, brings us concepts already worked on by Hobbs, Weber and Foucault: violence and power, control and discipline, reproduction and health. Thus, ageing is not only a collective phase, but also an individual experience of each one in relation to his/her body and the world around him/her that the instances of power try to control and define.

Besides changing the status quo of invisibility, exclusion and "disemancipation", ageing studies seek to answer many questions, among them: What is the body capable of? How is the body defined, surveilled and disciplined? What are the obstacles and possibilities that ageing brings us?

This seminar will address issues implicit in ageing, crossing with gender and identity studies. We will talk about the invisibility and representation of women in literature and culture, but also about their liberation to the "avenue of freedom" (Greer), in which women can experience their bodies and define their paths.

Giving voice to women we will work with ideas from Germaine Greer, Susan Sontag and Judith Butler. Fragments of texts by Éilís Ní Dhuibhne, Mary Morrissy and Siri Hustvedt will be covered.

Bio note

Zuzanna Zarebska Sanches (PhD, Post-Doc) is a researcher at the University of Lisbon Centre for English Studies (ULICES/CEAUL). She has been a visiting researcher at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth and University College Dublin, Ireland, under supervision of Prof. Margaret Kelleher, working on the contemporary writing of Irish women authors. Her research interests include Irish and British literatures and cultures, diaspora studies, feminisms, gender and identity studies, and ageing. She is a member of the RHOME and Medical Humanities projects. She teaches at the Department of English Studies at the University of Lisbon. She is currently developing a project on women and ageing, "Women and Ageing: Towards equality, dignity and improvement of life and well-being."