Embracing Age: How Catholic Nuns Became Models of Aging Well examines a community of individuals whose aging trajectories contrast mainstream American experiences. In mainstream American society, aging is presented as a “problem,” a state to be avoided as long as possible, a state that threatens one’s ability to maintain independence, autonomy, control over one’s surroundings. Aging “well” (or avoiding aging) has become a twenty-first century American preoccupation. Embracing ...

Health and wellbeing are profoundly shaped by communication processes. Language and Health in Action explores these interconnections by bringing together cutting-edge global scholarship from linguistic and medical anthropology. The book highlights the centrality of language practices and language ideologies in how professionals, individuals, families, and communities navigate illness and pursue health across the lifecourse, in clinical contexts, and beyond. Each chapter includes i...

In recent decades, the North American public has pursued an inspirational vision of successful aging—striving through medical technique and individual effort to eradicate the declines, vulnerabilities, and dependencies previously commonly associated with old age. On the face of it, this bold new vision of successful, healthy, and active aging is highly appealing. But it also rests on a deep cultural discomfort with aging and being old.The contributors to Successful Aging