The Gerontologist Vol. 63, Issue 10 (Dec 2023) is a special timely issue that asks bold questions about the relationship between the humanities and gerontology and how each have shaped and cross each other’s horizons of research. Humanities scholars have adapted gerontological insights, ideas, data and anti-ageist critiques, while gerontologists borrow from the humanities its theories, methods, futuristic speculations, and imaginative poetics. Thus, the issue is both a reflexive account of gerontology’s historical roots in the humanities and a critical assessment of current humanities-gerontology perspectives.
The response to the editors’ call for papers around the issue’s theme, ‘Interdisciplinary Pathways: Humanities, Arts, and Gerontology’ resulted in a rich scholarly collection that counters the disciplinary and institutional isolation of gerontology and the humanities. Organized into three sub-areas, ‘methodological bridges’, ‘literary visions’, and ‘voices of everyday age’, the articles are fascinating explorations into the meaning and diversity of age, the care and inclusion of older people, and the limits and opportunities for aging well.
The collection will also appeal to readers to think beyond the typical conventions of gerontology as a scientific or medical enterprise and the humanities as a convenient but less rigorous auxiliary of arts, stories and images. The editors, Ulla Kriebernegg, Sally Chivers and Stephen Katz are grateful to The Gerontologist and to the authors for this opportunity to publish and disseminate research that contributes to a growing interdisciplinary literature on aging.