Aging the other way

Óscar Loureda (ed.)

Everyone wants to grow old, no one wants to be old, it is said in a folk wisdom from China as well as from Africa, Latin America or Europe. People grow old around the whole world. But in doing so they are assigned very different roles in the social and cultural context as well as possible alternative concepts of the design of this life stage are also characterized by religious, cultural and social attributions.

"Aging the other way" – was the motto of the nine lectures of the "Studium Generale" to which the Heidelberg University invited in the summer semester 2015. Scientists of the Ruperto Carola as well as other universities in national territory and abroad looked at various aspects of aging from the perspective of their respective disciplines from dealing with aging and elderly people in Asia to ethical considerations of age to presentations of the subject in contemporary literature. The series of lectures was designed by employees of the research project "Aging in the Transcultural Context" which is located at the Cluster of Excellence "Asia and Europe in the Global Context" of the Heidelberg University.