DeFalco, AI (2016) In Praise of Idleness: Aging and the Morality of Inactivity. Cultural Critique, 92. pp. 84-113. ISSN 1534-5203
Abstract
This essay explores the cultural meanings and implications of “activity” and “idleness” in order to interrogate the repercussions of the persistent stigmatization of inactive bodies that cannot or will not be properly activated, according to medical, political, economic, and gerontological discourses. Older bodies are especially at risk of censure within these discourses of activation, which privilege the imperatives of youthful vigor, activity, and speed. The essay concludes by looking to fictional treatments of old age that imagine alternative perspectives on the idleness associated with late-life impairment—in particular the film The Straight Story, directed by David Lynch, and Marilynne Robinson's novel Gilead—proposing that such texts offer narratives of fullness and quietude that implicitly challenge the denigration of inactivity as unhealthy disengagement.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures (Leeds) > School of English (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 30 Sep 2016 09:46 |
Last Modified: | 04 Nov 2016 04:13 |
Published Version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.5749/culturalcritique.92.2016... |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | The University of Minnesota Press |
Identification Number: | 10.5749/culturalcritique.92.2016.0084 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:105356 |