Symposium "Ageing and Gender in Contemporary European Literatures and Film"

A vibrant in-person symposium titled "Ageing and Gender in Contemporary European Literatures and Film", organised by Associate Professor Dr Michaela Schrage-Früh (MLAL/Centre for European Studies) took place on 27th June 2024 at UL.

The day's focus was on comparative approaches to representations of ageing and gender across European cultures. The programme kicked off with a keynote address delivered by a visiting researcher from Spain: Dr Maricel Oró-Piqueras (Universitat de Lleida): "Female Ageing through European Eyes: The older woman in Deborah Moggach’s and Maria Barbal’s Fiction".

In the course of the day, delegates from UL, MIC, University of Maynooth, University of Galway and ENS Lyons presented and discussed papers on a broad variety of topics: Jean Conacher (UL), Coming of age in the love triangle: Roger Michell's 'The Mother' (2003) and Andreas Dresen's 'Wolke 9' (2008). Johannes Vith (UL), Lunar Ageing: Reversed Temporalities in Andrzej Żuławski's 'On the Silver Globe' (1988) and Duncan Jones's 'Moon' (2009) Susan Liddy (MIC), ‘The less said…’: Negotiating Ageing and Careers in the Screen Industries Maggie O’Neill (Galway), Kate O’Brien, Writing and Gendered Ageing Sorcha de Brún (UL), Women’s Work: Masculine Cultural Dominance, Age and Gender in Peig: A Scéal Féin (1998) Anita Barmettler (UL), Disruptive Old Women in the Swiss Film 'Late Bloomers' Gabrielle Fath (ENS Lyon), Writing against the Cult of Youth in the Modern West: the gendered and socio-economic implications of ageing as portrayed in Muriel Spark’s 'Memento Mori' and Michel Houellebecq’s 'La possibilité d'une île' Eva Auré (UL), Revealing Silence Around Women’s Ageing in Jackie Kay’s ‘These are not my Clothes’ and Marie-Sabine Roger’s ‘On n’a pas tous les jours cent ans…’ Michaela Schrage-Früh (UL), Ageing and the Posthuman in Recent Irish and German Novels Deirdre Flynn (MIC), Oona Frawley's 'Flight' (2014) & Jenny Erpenbeck's 'Go Went Gone' (2015): Hospitality and Ageing Masculinity in Migration Narratives Linda Shortt (Maynooth), Hermann Kinder’s 'Mein Melaten' and the Art of Living to Death.

The day provided an excellent opportunity to exchange ideas and insights on nuanced representations of gendered ageing across cultural boundaries, disciplines, media and genres. In view of what has been called "the greying of Europe", the theme of ageing is of central interest to European cultural studies and it was stimulating to observe similarities and differences across a variety of cultural representations. We hope that there will be future opportunities for collaboration, especially with our guest and keynote speaker Dr Oró-Piqueras (Universitat de Lleida), who is the current Chair of the European Network in Ageing Studies (ENAS).

We are grateful to AHSS for generously funding this event.