Providing a critical humanities approach to ageing, this book addresses new directions in age studies.

Part I What Does It Mean to Grow Old? 1.Abolition, Women's Rights, and the Contested Value of Being Old in the Nineteenth-Century United States. Response 1 - Abstracting Ageist Perceptions, Societal Ills, and Racist Burdens on the Psychological Well-being of Black Women: Is "Successful" Aging Still an Option? 2.There is No Such Thing as "the Elderly": Reading Age in Nineteenth-Century American Literature. Response 2 - Intersectionality and Age. 3.Cognition and Recognition in the Ethics of Dementia Care. Response 3 - Philosophical Approaches to Dementia: Some Further Reflections on Agency and Identity. 4.Agency and the Aging Artist. Response 4 - The Art of Bending the Successful Aging Paradigm: Contemporary Older Artists and their Continuing Creative Practices. Part II: Aging: Old Age and Disability. 5.What the Theatre Taught Me about Alzheimer's. Response 5 - Fuchs' Case for Stranger Visions. 6.Ableism and Ageism: Insights from Disability Studies for Aging Studies. Response 6 - Fears Generating Ageism and Ableism Are Well-Founded in a Society that Does Not Seek or Support Full Inclusion of All Persons. 7.In Conversation with Sally Chivers: Reimagining Long-Term Residential Care. Response 7 - Aging and Caring amid Words, Stories, and Texts. 8.Queer Aging and the Significance of (Narrative) Representation. Response 8 - What We Miss. Part III: Aging, Old Age, and Activism. 9.Conceptualizing Ageism: From Prejudice and Discrimination to Fourth Ageism. 10.Aging in the Anthropocene: Generational Time, Declining Longevity, Posthuman Aging. Response 10 - Aging in the Anthropocene: Geological Time, Generational Place. 11.Critical Conversations on Aging Futures: Decolonial Perspectives. Response 11 - The Age of (Relentless) Responsibility. Part IV: Old Age and Humanistic Approaches to Care. 12.Intimacy and Distance: Reflections on Eldercare in the United States. Response 12 - Towards a Deeper Understanding of Care in Later Life. 13.Care Work and the Politics of Interdependence. Response 13 - Developing New Forms of Care: From Individual to Collective Agency. 14.Posthuman Care and Posthumous Life in Marjorie Prime. Response 14 - Only Persons Can Provide Person-Centered Care for People Living with Dementia: "Walter Prime" and His Ilk Miss the Mark. 15.Risky Business: Bringing Transformative Creativity to U.S. Nursing Homes. Response 15 - Valuing Risk in Residential Long-term Care: Setting an Important Ethical Standard for Supporting and Nurturing Human Flourishing.