Aging Studies and Ecocriticism

Nassim Winnie Balestrini is professor of American studies and intermediality at the University of Graz, Austria.Julia Hoydis is professor of English literature at the University of Klagenfurt, Austria.Anna-Christina Kainradl is pre-doctoral researcher at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research on Aging and Care (CIRAC) at the University of Graz, Austria.Ulla Kriebernegg is professor in cultural aging and care studies and director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Research on Aging and Care (CIRAC) at the University of Graz, Austria.

• AcknowledgmentsNassim W. Balestrini, Julia Hoydis, Anna-Christina Kainradl, and Ulla Kriebernegg: Time, Relationality, and Fears of Ending: Encounters between Aging Studies and Ecocriticism Part I “Aging Bodies and Environments” 1 Silvia Gerlsbeck: “A World in Flux”: Temporality, Aging, and Environmental Change in V.S. Naipaul’s Late Work2 Christian Lenz: Footprints in the Jungle: Creating a Legacy in the Rainforest 3 Jade E. French: “Zoological Outcasts” and the Aging Other in Jean Rhys’s Late Short Stories 4 Núria Mina-Riera: Embodying Age(ing) in the Non-Human World in Lorna Crozier’s Poetry5 Simon Dickel: Beyond Reproductive Futurism: Harold and Maude’s Ecological Aesthetics 6 Tina-Karen Pusse and Michaela Schrage-Früh: Time Travel, Age/ing and Ecology in the German Netflix Series Dark (2017-2020) Part II “Growing Old Amid Environmental Crises” 7 Adrian Tait: Imagining Longevity and Sustainability in Walter Besant’s The Inner House and William Morris’ News from No

This book is a smart and insightful collection of chapters exploring “growing old at the end of the world.” I was immediately taken in by the similarities between aging studies and ecocritical approaches to understanding and deconstructing temporalities and the passing of time and couldn’t help but wonder: Why has it taken so long to have a book such as this? It will become required reading for my future classes.