HSOC 339 "Ageing, Beauty, and Sexuality": Psychological Gerontology in the 21st Century
Cross-listed as NURS 339, GSOC 339
Offered:Spring 2008
Kagan T 4-7
Benjamin Franklin Seminar
This honors course examines the psychological gerontology of advancing age and identity in the 21st century. Examination emphasizes gendered notions of beauty and sexuality in ageing and the life span to foster discourse around historical notions and images of beauty and ugliness in late life in contrast to contemporary messages of attractiveness and age represented by both women and men. The course is designed to create intellectual foundations as place from which to critique socially mediated and personally conveyed images and messages from a variety of media and their influence on intrapersonal and interpersonal constructions and social processes. Contemporary and historical ideas encompassing stereotypical and idealized views of the older person are employed to reflect dialogue around readings and field work. Classical and contemporary scholarship from gerontology, anthropology, biomedicine and surgery, nursing, and marketing among other disciplines as well as select lay literature are critiqued and compared with interpretation of field work to build understandings of diverse individual, familial, and cultural impressions of aging and identity. Skills for participant observer field work in the tradition of thick description are built to allow reflection and analysis of discourse about aging, beauty, sexuality, and other relevant aspects of human identity.
Syllabus
