Embracing Age : How Catholic Nuns Became Models of Aging Well.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Corwin, Anna I.

Humanities, Funded by the National Endowment for the, Author.

Contributor:

Humanities, funder.

Series:

Global perspectives on aging series

Global Perspectives on Aging

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Aging--Religious aspects--Catholic Church.

Aging.

Aging--United States.

Monastic and religious life of women--United States.

Monastic and religious life of women.

Nuns--Religious life.

Nuns.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (203 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Other Title:

Embracing Age

Place of Publication:

New Brunswick : Rutgers University Press, 2021.

Language Note:

In English.

Biography/History:

ANNA I. CORWIN is an associate professor of anthropology at Saint Mary's College of California in Moraga.

Summary:

Embracing Age: How Catholic Nuns Became Models of Aging Well examines a community of individuals whose aging trajectories contrast mainstream American experiences. In mainstream American society, aging is presented as a "problem," a state to be avoided as long as possible, a state that threatens one's ability to maintain independence, autonomy, control over one's surroundings. Aging "well" (or avoiding aging) has become a twenty-first century American preoccupation. Embracing Age provides a window into the everyday lives of American Catholic nuns who experience longevity and remarkable health and well-being at the end of life. Catholic nuns aren't only healthier in older age, they are healthier because they practice a culture of acceptance and grace around aging. Embracing Age demonstrates how aging in the convent becomes understood by the nuns to be a natural part of the life course, not one to be feared or avoided. Anna I. Corwin shows readers how Catholic nuns create a cultural community that provides a model for how to grow old, decline, and die that is both embedded in American culture and quite distinct from other American models. Open access edition funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. The text of this book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Illustrations

Introduction

Part 1 Being Well in the Convent Prayer and Care in Interaction

1 Life in the Convent

2 Being Is Harder Than Doing The Process of Embracing Aging

3 Talking to God Prayer as Social Support

4 Care, Elderspeak, and Meaningful Engagement

Part 2 Shaping Experience The Convent in Sociohistorical Context

5 Changing God, Changing Bodies How Prayer Practices Shape Embodied Experience

6 Spiritual Healing, Meaningful Decline, and Sister Death

7 Kenosis Emptying the Self

Conclusion

Appendix Transcription Conventions

Acknowledgments

Notes

References

Index

Notes:

This eBook is made available Open Access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0 https://www.degruyter.com/dg/page/open-access-policy

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9781978822313

1978822316

OCLC:

1255596835

Access Restriction:

Open access Unrestricted online access