On her book Aging by the Book: The Emergence of Midlife in Victorian Britain
Cover Interview of January 13, 2010
Lastly
I hope this book not only offers a fresh perspective on Victorian literature but suggests a new way of thinking about age both then and now. Of course, age is a biological fact, but our experiences of it are shaped by our beliefs. To a large degree, these are foisted upon us by culture, by socially-constructed “meanings” that media images and market strategies assign. I want my readers to see aging as a product of culture. Only when we question what we think is natural about aging do we become aware of how our perceptions are formed by societal cues. Only when we are armed with this kind of consciousness, can we overcome ageist stereotypes that cloud our vision and restrict our possibilities.
Spontaneous generation is one of those wrong theories that clutter the basements of the biological sciences and that now look so very obviously wrong that it is hard to see how anyone could have taken them seriously in the first place. Why wouldn’t it occur to anyone that flies might be laying eggs that were too small for us to see? How simple would the crucial experiment be? What I have tried to do in much of my work is to turn this ‘obvious wrongness’ on its head—why, exactly, does it seem so obviously wrong?—and see what the new picture that emerges from that inquiry says about science and our belief in its results.Daryn Lehoux, Interview of November 13, 2017
It’s commonplace to say that humor is subjective, since what’s funny to you might not be funny to me. But humor is also a loaded concept. If you – or your people – have no sense of humor, or the wrong one, that means you’re less rational, tolerant, understanding, or civilized. You don’t get it. Or, worse, you lack something human. Modern Chinese debates about humor were very much caught up with these fundamental questions of value.Christopher Rea, Interview of October 26, 2016
Lastly
I hope this book not only offers a fresh perspective on Victorian literature but suggests a new way of thinking about age both then and now. Of course, age is a biological fact, but our experiences of it are shaped by our beliefs. To a large degree, these are foisted upon us by culture, by socially-constructed “meanings” that media images and market strategies assign. I want my readers to see aging as a product of culture. Only when we question what we think is natural about aging do we become aware of how our perceptions are formed by societal cues. Only when we are armed with this kind of consciousness, can we overcome ageist stereotypes that cloud our vision and restrict our possibilities.
© 2010 Kay Heath