The Meanings of Dementia: Interpreting Cultural Narratives of Aging Societies

FAIN: RZ-286981-22

Hastings Center (Garrison, NY 10524-4125)
Nancy Scerbo Berlinger (Project Director: December 2021 to present)

Preparation of a special supplement to the Hastings Center Report composed of 18 essays analyzing cultural narratives concerning dementia in the US and Europe to be made available in print and online. (18 months)

The Meanings of Dementia: Interpreting Cultural Narratives of Aging Societies is an 18-month project to produce new critical writing on meanings of dementia in diverse social groups in the United States and other aging societies. Dementia refers to a group of common, age-associated, progressively debilitating, ultimately terminal conditions affecting thought, memory, speech, and behavior. Humanities scholarship has long studied personal narratives; this humanities-social science collaboration will consider how greater attention to cultural narratives – concepts expressed through metaphors, tropes, images, and other representations that circulate through a society to make meaning out of experience – can translate into public humanities work fostering greater inclusion for fellow citizens living with dementia or providing dementia care. We will produce a print and open-access digital volume of 18 essays for peer review and print publication as a supplement to a scholarly journal.