Informed by the cultural, sociological and medical evidence, Women’s Lives in Time: Bodies, Homes and Voices: Ageing Women Research Project (2017 – …) addresses the themes of ageing studies such as being aged by culture, navigating the discourses of decline, re-acquiring agency, re-storying life narratives, transcending the current normalizing public narratives and embracing the power of remembering and reminiscing. The objective is to collect, impact and form the narratives of ageing and to standardize the presence of cultural and literary gerontology as an area of research at The School of Arts and Humanities of the University of Lisbon. Emphasis is given to literatures and cultures from the English-speaking countries.
Furthermore, the project fosters international collaboration, international meetings such as the Within and Without: Representations of Ageing International Symposia I-III. These events hosted a number of eminent scholars in the field of cultural ageing, gender and women’s studies such as Professor Sarah Falcus (Huddersfield & Graz), Professor Heike Hartung (Graz & Potsdam), Professor Katsura Sako (Keio, Japan) and Professor Erzsebet Barat (Szeged & Central European University).
As part of the Project’s activities, an emphasis has been placed on teaching while integrating aging studies within the scope of BA modules on communication, literary studies and seminars in the field of English literature. Ageing has marked its presence in postgraduate open seminars in Medical Humanities and RHOSE: Representations of Home Open Seminars. Other postgraduate seminars have been taught at the University of Madeira and CES, Coimbra University. Furthermore, intensive courses in ageing studies have been offered since 2023.
Forthcoming this year is a Special Issue on ageing with Anglo-Saxonica, entitled Withing and Without: Essays in Representations of Ageing. Women’s Lives in Time is being developed at CEAUL/ULICES. The volume will be followed by a multilingual, international publication entitled A Representation of Old Age and Ageing in Literary and Cultural Narratives. Interdisciplinary Studies in the Humanities, edited by Zuzanna Zarebska and Joaquim Pinheiro (Faculdade de Artes e Humanidades da Universidade da Madeira; CECH-UC)
Future activities are being planned in collaboration with END. Illness in the Age of Extinction: Anglophone Narratives of Personal and Planetary Degradation (2000-present)”, Spanish Ministry of Research, Science and Innovation (ref.: PID2019-109565RB-I00/AEI) as well as HEAL: Health, Environment, Arts and Literature Project hosted at the University of Oviedo, Spain.
