From life storytelling to age autobiography

This essay، نويسنده , , excerpted from the forthcoming The New Time Machines: Practicing Age Studies (University of Chicago Press)، نويسنده , , proposes that we create a new genre of life storytelling—age autobiography—to understand how Americans at all ages come to describe “aging” and the age classes، نويسنده , , starting with aging into adolescence. The author returns to early adolescence، نويسنده , , recalling a progress narrative her mother enjoyed repeating، نويسنده , , which her fatherʹs story did not match. She suggests that Americans share master narratives about aging—often drawn from the progress/decline binary—and cultural forces pressuring us to speak “difference” and dictating “change.” Age autobiographies، نويسنده , , endowed with revelatory historical/cultural critiques، نويسنده , , promise to replace the term “aging” with narratives about “being aged by culture” and will emphasize that selfhood concerns an embodied psyche، نويسنده , , in culture، نويسنده , , over time. What feminist autobiography is to being gendered، نويسنده , , what anti-racist autobiography is to being racialized، نويسنده , , age autobiography will be to being aged by culture: the revealer of the conditions of discourse.، نويسنده ,

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