A Critical Examination of Anti-Aging Discourse

The fountain of youth has not been found yet; the human's dream of immortality maintains its current interest. The current rejuvenation endeavor of the humans reoccurs around a specific popular topic: "Anti-Aging". This study presents that recent anti-aging discourse includes certain perceptions and assumptions about living and keeping alive which are peculiar to late modern times and innocent-looking suggestions of this discourse determine the ideal borders of aging body. It argues that anti-aging discourse redefines the meaning of age, transforms the aging process into a performative sphere and reinterprets human temporality by narrating aging process with certain metaphors and represents the aging as a merely biological and controllable situation. To find out the peculiarity of the present war against aging, the author combines Foucauldian theory on "the power over life" and Sontag's approach to "the metaphorical representation of illness". Under the light of these theoretical sources the work presents a compelling cartography of the anti-aging's new body and lifestyle project which transforms our experiences and perceptions concerning our "aging" bodies.