Welcome to Middle Age!: (And Other Cultural Fictions) (The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Series on Mental Health and Development, Studies on Successful Midlife Development) ISBN-13: 9780226756073

Author: Shweder, Richard A.

Brand: University of Chicago Press

Edition: 1

Number Of Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 9780226756073

Release Date: 03-08-1998

Languages: English

Binding: Hardcover

Part Number: 21 line drawings, 11 tables

Package Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 0.9 inches

Details: Many of us believe we recognize the symptoms of middle age: lower back pain, mortgages, and an aversion to loud late-night activities. This particular construction of midlife, most often rendered in chronological, biological, and medical terms, has become an accepted reality to European-Americans and has recently spread to such non-Western capitals as Tokyo and New Delhi. Welcome to Middle Age! (And Other Cultural Fictions) explores the significance of this pervasive cultural representation alongside the alternative “fictions” that represent the life course in other regions of the world where middle age does not exist.

In this volume, anthropologists, behavioral scientists, and historians explore topics ranging from the Western ideology of “midlife decline” to cultural representations of mature adulthood that operate without the category of middle age. The result is a fascinating, panoramic collection that explores the myths surrounding and the representations of mature adulthood and of those years in the life span from thirty to seventy.