Research

 

The event was jointly chaired by the PI, Professor David Amigoni (English, RI Humanities), pictured, and Professor Gordon McMullan (English, King's).

 

The workshop brought together arts and humanities scholars (in literary studies, art history, and medical humanities) to converse across disciplinary and practice domains with social gerontologists and local authority intergenerational officers. Crucial to the conversation were the experiences of people in later life who continue to be professionally creative, as well as those who have discovered new creative outlets.

 

The professionals included the acclaimed composer Anthony Payne, who completed Elgar's unfinished Third Symphony; and the renowned soprano Jane Manning; while Richard and Sandra Melville represented the Company of Elders, an amateur dance company for elders under professional direction. Linda Hutcheon, the internationally renowned literary critic (University of Toronto) gave a joint presentation with her husband, Michael Hutcheon, a professor of medicine, on the origins of the idea of 'late style' in operatic composition and literary art; the art historian Sam Smiles, and the film scholar Amir Cohen-Shalev explored late style from the perspectives of their own fields. This lively workshop built on the first successful meeting of the network which took place at Keele in March.

 

The next workshop, on late-life creativity and community, will take place at Keele on 13 July, following the Centre for Social Gerontology's hosting of the British Society of Gerontology International Conference (Keele, 11-13 July).