Age Matters Seminar
3rd-4th October 2024 

Seminar on age studies in the humanities 

Åbo Akademi University, Tehtaankatu 2, Turku

Photo by micheile henderson on Unsplash

Age Matters! 3.-4.10.2024 

Åbo Akademi University, Arken, Tehtaankatu 2








Program









   











Keynote speaker





The seminar’s keynote speaker is Sarah Falcus (on zoom). Falcus is a researcher in the areas of ageing studies and literary studies. She is the co-author of Contemporary Narratives of Dementia: Ethics, Ageing, Politics (2019) and co-editor of The Bloomsbury Handbook to Aging in Contemporary Literature and Film (2023) and Contemporary Narratives of Ageing, Illness, Care (2022). Her current work centres on two main areas: children’s literature and ageing; and ageing/the lifecourse in science and speculative fiction. She is currently a Visiting Researcher at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Aging and Care at the University of Graz.  





About us





The seminar is organized by Johanna Slotte Dufva, doctoral student (Åbo Akademi University) and Hanna Varjakoski, PhD, postdoctoral researcher (University of Eastern Finland).
E-mail: agematters-turku@abo.fi





The seminar is arranged with funding from the Faculty of Arts, Psychology and Theology (Åbo Akademi University).









Thursday 3.10.2024





9:00–9.30 Registration, morning coffee, welcome
9.30–11:00  Sarah Falcus, keynote (on zoom): “Narrativizing Age: Studying Age(ing) and Culture”.
Discussion.






11–12.15: Session 1: Media representations of ageing
11:00-11.20 Hanna Varjakoski: Komediaelokuva ja ikääntyminen.
11.20-11.40 Sanna Kivimäki, Kirsi Lumme-Sandt: Gendered portraits of older adults in a
popular 50+ magazine in Finland (presentation in Finnish)
11.40-12:00 Touko Vaahtera, Hanna Varjakoski: Ikä suomalaisten matkapuhelinoperaattorien
TV-mainoksissa matkapuhelimien yleistymisen aikakaudella.
12:00-12:15 Discussion






12.15–13.15 Lunch (own expense)






13.30–14:45 Session 2: Literary reflections on ageing
13.30-13.50 Sirkka-Liisa Kivelä: Ikääntyneiden runoilijoiden vanhuskuva gerontologin
tulkitsemana.
13.50-14.10 Johanna Slotte Dufva: Descriptions of elderly people in Merete Mazzarella’s
works 1979-2019.
14:10-14.30 Miranda Geust: Queer ageing in Tove Jansson’s novel The Honest Deceiver
14.30-14:45 Discussion





14:45–15:15 Coffee






15.15–16:30 Session 3: Social worlds and encounters
15:15-15:35 Katariina Tuominen, Kirsi Lumme-Sandt, Anu Siren: Cherished but lost, needed
but excessive – Exploring the ways in which the oldest old talk about family and close
relationships.
15:35-15:55 Jenny Paananen, Jenni Kulmala, Jari Pirhonen: Social death of older adults
residing in nursing homes in Finland.
15:55-16:15 Diana Stenvall-Hotti: Encountering older adults and their needs: Constructing and
managing agency in everyday care practices in residential elderly care.
16:15-16:30 Discussion














Friday 4.10.2024





9:00–10:15 Session 4: Constructing ageing in policy and care





9:00–9:20 Hanna Sjögren, Charlotta Niemistö, Jeff Hearn: The representation(s) of older
people in national policy: Analysing Finnish policies on ageing and care in neoliberal times
9:20–9:40 Anna Sjödal: Respectful ageing: ideas on dignity and ageing in the narratives of the
Russian-speaking care workers employed in Finland’s elderly care sector.
9:40–10:00 Riku Laakkonen: Shadows on the screen – Representations of the older adults
made by themselves
10:00–10:15 Discussion






10:15–10:30 Break






10.30-11.45 Session 5: Ageing and environment
10.30-10.50 Tarja Tapio: Ikä, arki ja jatkuvuus arktisissa paikallisyhteisöissä –
kulttuurigerontologisen näkökulman paikannusta.
10.50-11.10 Jenni Rinne, Helena Ruotsala: Sensory ethnographic study on ageing with nature.
11.10-11.30 Suvi Fried: Actual and imaginary abilities: changing physical capability and
maintaining the lived space in old age.
11.30-11.45 Discussion






11.45-12.45 Lunch






13:00–14.15 Session 6: Theoretical reflections and personal interpretations on age
13:00–13:20 Hanna Ojala: Teoriaa iästä: Luenta Margaret Morganroth Gulletten ikäajattelusta.
13:20-13:40 Laura Lahti: ”Se nyt kuuluu tähän ikään” – eturauhassyöpäpotilaiden tulkintoja
ikääntymisestä.
13:40–14:00 Outi Valkama, Outi Jolanki: Different ways to use age as a justification in self presentations of ICT non-user.
14:00–14:45 Discussion, coffee & closing discussion





 































































Age Studies





(or ageing studies) is an interdisciplinary theoretical field that offers critical approaches to age: its fluidity, cultural constitution, and its power to define and divide. Age studies is interested in seeking new understandings of age and ageing, exploring what it means to grow older and examining the ways in which age ideologies, for instance, affect the lived experience. Addressing questions related to ageism are also at the very core of age studies. 





Unlike gender studies and crip studies, age studies has yet not conquered a space of its own within the humanistic curriculum in Finland. However, as age studies scholars Cynthia Port and Aagne Swinnen (2015) note, there is an urgent need for greater attention and critical analysis to age in humanities disciplines not only due to the demographic change, but to better understand and interpret the human experience, and to fight the damaging binary cultural system that idealizes youth and devalues old age.   





Reference: 
Port, C., & Swinnen, A. (2015). Age Studies Comes of Age. Age, Culture, Humanities, 1, 1–8. 
https://doi.org/10.7146/ageculturehumanities.v1i.129496





































“Aging has a wonderful beauty, and we should have respect for that.” 













Eartha Kitt













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