Time Travel in Life & Legacy
Life stories and individual memory define our roles, however small, in history. The good news of growing old is that we have more to tell.
Spring 2016
The Agency of the Aged
How aging changes us and our world.
Why Care About 85 When You Are 25?
The ailments, agist stereotypes, and ultimate end-point of death itself rarely figure in the minds of the young. Until, that is, the long-term consequences of our short-term denial become more and more obvious as the years pass.
Archtypes: Digital Aging
When the aged enter the realm of digital virtual reality.
Our Comic Ends
The magic trick that Chast performs in her cartoons is to make laughter out of the dirty secret of life: it is an alternately stressful and humdrum affair, and then it is over.
On Old Age
"Our span of life is divided into parts; it consists of large circles enclosing smaller. One circle embraces and bounds the rest; it reaches from birth to the last day of existence."
An Old Couple’s Search for Dignity
No one—in either real or reel life—wants to confront the difficulties of aging, the imminence of dying. The point is best proved by Leo McCarey’s glorious Make Way for Tomorrow (1937), the most unbearably moving and resolutely unsparing work Hollywood has ever made about the elderly.
Animal Tranquility and Decay
The English romantic poet speaks to the envy of old age.
Dennis the Menace & Mr. Wilson
Future businesses may have as many as five different generations working together. Here is how to best cultivate an environment in which everyone works their best.
Provide, Provide
The witch that came (the withered hag) To wash the steps with pail and rag Was once the beauty Abishag, The picture pride of Hollywood. Too many fall from great and good For you to doubt the likelihood. Die early and avoid the fate. Or…
Eighteen Popular Songs About Aging and the Old
From Bill Withers' "Grandma's Hands" to Jack Yellin and Ted Shapiro's "Life Begins at Forty," music has our number when it comes to growing old.
Does Political Judgement Improve with Age?
One measure of the extent to which we believe age influences political beliefs is the extent to which we know Churchill’s famous phrase, “If you’re not a socialist before you’re 25, you have no heart; if you are a socialist after 25, you have no head.” Or, at least, whether we believe we know it.
“When You Are Old”
The great Irish poet's late verse homage to "our changing face."
A Graph For the Ages
Here are some common realities for aging adults.
Reflections of a Baby Boomer
There is perhaps one last chance for my exulted cohort, the baby boomers, to step forward and provide a moral voice and active leadership in righting the American ship of state toward its demographic realities. Those of us who are on the leading edge of our cohort are now moving toward our 70s.
A Shift Unlike Any Other
To study aging and its impacts on a campus that, seemingly, never ages can be a stark reminder of a crucial dynamic at work.
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Winter 2024
Black History Month 2024
Essays, reviews, and reflections that celebrate African American life and legacies
