Description |
This project is inspired by the following three books: The Joumev of Life: a Cultural History of Aging in America, by Thomas R. Cole (1992); Disciplining Old Age: The Formation of Gerontological Knowledge, by Stephen Katz (1996); and Crossing Frontiers: Gerontology Emerges as a Science, by W. Andrew Achenbaum (1995). These authors have responded to the spirit of Simone de Beauvoir's call for change. Their talents are in the area of "historical" gerontology. They have a commitment to strengthen the field of gerontology, and a desire to enlarge the boundaries and experience of old age. These three selected works are an immeasurable contribution to the literature in the fledgling field of "critical" gerontology. Although each book has its own unique perspective and style, all three address influential factors leading to the formation of our westernized modem knowledge of aging, investigate the effects of this highly rationalized modem model on gerontology, and briefly speculate about what a "postmodern" approach might offer. Although historical gerontology presents the stimulus for this discussion, what will follow is a synthesis of literature from a number of different areas of study, within the domain of gerontology and without. As the title of this project implies, I begin by examining the emergence of a postmodern perspective in gerontology. This first requires the construction of a foundation of knowledge, To be specific, I will explore the epistemology o f gerontology - - a philosophical term that gets at the root of the construction of knowledge, Thus, how do we know what we know about aging and why? In Chapter 2 1 rely on David Elkind (1994), and Gerald Young (1997), for a general framing of the modern perspective. Chapter 3 is an in-depth examination of modernism as the philosophical foundation upon which gerontology was built. For this I turn to Cole, Katz and Achenbaum for their research on the premodern social construction of aging, and modem reconstruction of aging, |