[Discussion] theorization of retirement

[Gonul]

Modern Language Association
Philadelphia, PA
December 27-30, 2004

Scholarly considerations of retirement sought for a special session proposal.

In mainstream American society, people often think of retirement as the
major life event occurring between menopause and death. How realistic is
this? For whom does retirement serve as a major event, for whom does it
not, and why? How can a theorization of retirement inform our understanding
of aging and ageism? What other events hold greater sway? What other
markers of the passage of time should we be examining more closely than
retirement? In what ways are such markers ageist, and in what ways are they
not? Is retirement anything other than an ageist construct? How does the
literature of glossy retirement portfolios construct our expectations of
retirement? In the body of literature that foregrounds the experiences of
retirement, how is the experience theorized? Other than as a life event,
how do we currently understand the change from employment to socially
acceptable unemployment, or from full-time to part-time employment? How
might other understandings of retirement change how we prepare for or live
out the experience?

Full papers or 250-word abstracts due by December 15th, 2003. Email
submissions preferred but not required.

Leni Marshall
mars0264@umn.edu
Department of English
University of Minnesota
207 Lind Hall, 207 Church Street SE
Minneapolis, MN 55455