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Psychology Social Psychology

Reading Our Lives

The Poetics of Growing Old

by (author) William L. Randall & Elizabeth McKim

Publisher
Oxford University Press
Initial publish date
Jun 2008
Category
Social Psychology
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9780195306873
    Publish Date
    Jun 2008
    List Price
    $67.00

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Description

Against the background of Socrates' insight that the unexamined life is not worth living, Reading Our Lives: The Poetics of Growing Old investigates the often overlooked inside dimensions of aging. Despite popular portrayals of mid- and later life as entailing inevitable decline, this book looks at aging as, potentially, a process of poeisis: a creative endeavor of fashioning meaning from the ever-accumulating texts - memories and reflections-that constitute our inner worlds. At its center is the conviction that although we are constantly reading our lives to some degree anyway, doing so in a mindful matter is critical to our development in the second half of life. Drawing on research in numerous disciplines affected by the so-called narrative turn - including cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and the psychology of aging - authors Randall and McKim articulate a vision of aging that promises to accommodate such time-honored concepts as wisdom and spirituality: one that understands aging as a matter not merely of getting old but of consciously growing old.

About the authors

William Lowell Randall is a professor in the Department of Gerontology at St Thomas University.

William L. Randall's profile page

Elizabeth McKim's profile page

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