Successful Aging As a Contemporary Obsession

Preface
Acknowledgments

Introduction: Successful Aging as a Twenty-first-Century Obsession
Sarah Lamb, Jessica Robbins-Ruszkowski, and Anna Corwin

Part I Gender, Sexuality, and the Allure of Anti-Aging
1 Successful Aging, Ageism, and the Maintenance of Age and Gender Relations
Toni Calasanti and Neal King
2 Opting In or Opting Out? North American Women Share Strategies for Aging Successfully with (and without) Cosmetic Intervention
Abigail T. Brooks
3 Aging Out: Ageism, Heterosexism, and Racism among Aging African American Lesbians and Gay Men
Imani Woody
4 Erectile Dysfunction as Successful Aging in Mexico
Emily Wentzell

Part II Ideals of Independence, Interdependence, and Intimate Sociality in Later Life
5 Beyond Independence: Older Chicagoans Living Valued Lives
Elana D. Buch
6 Growing Old with God: An Alternative Vision of Successful Aging among Catholic Nuns
Anna I. Corwin
7 Aspiring to Activity: Universities of the Third Age, Gardening, and Other Forms of Living in Postsocialist Poland
Jessica Robbins-Ruszkowski
8 Should Old Acquaintance Be Forgot? Friendship in the Face of Dementia
Janelle S. Taylor

Part III National Policies and Everyday Practices: Individual and Collective Projects of Aging Well
9 Getting Old and Keeping Going: The Motivation Technologies of Active Aging in Denmark
Aske Juul Lassen and Astrid Pernille Jespersen
10 Foolish Vitality: Humor, Risk, and Success in Japan
Jason Danely
11 Nurturing Life in Contemporary Beijing
Judith Farquhar and Qicheng Zhang
12 Depreciating Age, Disintegrating Ties: On Being Old in a Century of Declining Elderhood in Kenya
Janet McIntosh

Part IV Medicine, Morality, and Self: Lessons from Life’s Ends
13 Successful Selves? Heroic Tales of Alzheimer’s Disease and Personhood in Brazil
Annette Leibing
14 Comfortable Aging: Lessons for Living from Eighty-five and Beyond
Meika Loe
15 Ageless Aging or Meaningful Decline? Aspirations of Aging and Dying in the United States and India
Sarah Lamb

Epilogue: Successful Aging and Desired Interdependence

Susan Reynolds Whyte
Notes on Contributors
Index