Embracing Age: How Catholic Nuns Became Models of Aging Well (Global Perspectives on Aging)

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 ones ability to maintain independence, autonomy, control over ones surroundings. Aging well (or avoiding aging) has become a twentyfirst century American preoccupation. Embracing Age provides a window into the everyday lives of American Catholic nuns who experience longevity and remarkable health and wellbeing at the end of life. Catholic nuns arent 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.Instructors Guide is available at no cost (https://d3tto5i5w9ogdd.cloudfront.net/wpcontent/uploads/2021/08/26120146/corwin_instructor_guide_final.pdf).Open access edition funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.The text of this book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercialNoDerivatives 4.0 International License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/byncnd/4.0/Download open access ebook here.