OUT OF TIME: THE PLEASURES AND THE PERILS OF AGEING
by Lynne Segal
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AVAILABLE NOW - http://www.versobooks.com/books/1469-out-of-time
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“An international treasure.”– Barbara Ehrenreich
“A unique capacity for clarity and wit, along with her courage of intellect.” – Sheila Rowbotham
“One of the most capacious readers of feminism and sexuality studies I have ever encountered.” – Judith Butler
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A profound and sympathetic investigation of ageing, in life and literature.
“How old am I? Don’t ask; don’t tell. The question frightens me. It is maddening, all the more so for those like me, feminists on the left, approaching our sixth or seventh decade, who like to feel we have spent much of our time trying to combat prejudices on all sides. Yet fears of revealing our age when the years start to race by, speeding up as they mount, are hard to smother. Why write about ageing, when this troubling topic is so daunting, so complicated? My very hesitation, of course, tells me just how much needs to change before we can start to face up to the fearful disparagement of old age, including our own prejudices. Ageing encompasses so much, and yet most people’s thoughts about it embrace so little.” – Lynne Segal
In OUT OF TIME, leading thinker Lynne Segal examines her life and surveys the work and lives of other writers and artists to explore the pleasures and perils of growing old. Following in the footsteps
of Simone de Beauvoir—who in her mid-fifties mourned 'never again!' and yet was energetically writing in her sixties and seventies—Segal mixes memoir, literature and polemic to examine the inevitable consequences of staying alive.
Who is that stranger who stares back from the mirror? What happens to ambition and sexuality? As millions of baby boomers approach their sixth or seventh decade, these questions are becoming increasingly urgent. Must the old always be in conflict with the young?
How can we deal with the inevitability of loss and find victory in survival?
Brilliant, moving and challenging, OUT OF TIME is an urgent and necessary feminist corrective to the assumptions and taboos that constrain the lives of the aged.
RECENT PUBLICITY:
Lynne Segal on the politics, pains and pleasures of ageing in the Times Higher Education - http://bit.ly/1aHQhST
You can listen to Lynne Segal talking about her new book on BBC Woman’s Hour here: http://bbc.in/19X1Qq4
‘A Life of Desire: what happened when the generation of free love grew up? A socialist feminist looks back on a life of protest and passion’ – Lynne Segal writes in the Guardian Weekend http://bit.ly/HlmdDo
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“In this courageous study, Lynne Segal addresses the vicissitudes of ageing, a process that lies in wait for us all. She turns on the subject a critical eye honed by social psychology, psychoanalysis, feminism and radical politics. An original, probing and unsettling exploration.” – Stuart Hall, author of REPRESENTATION
“It’s about time for a book like OUT OF TIME, compassionate, seasoned, honest, and wise, which asks questions about age but aims to enlighten, rather than frighten us. Read on!” – Elaine Showalter, author of A JURY OF HER PEERS
“Passionate, lucid, and shockingly candid ... a clarion call to those who see feminism as a redundant cause.”– Helen Walsh
“We too often think of ageing as a sad departure, a process of decline, but in this marvellous and elegantly written book Lynne Segal turns this thought around. She does not back away from loss or pain, but she shows how love, commitment and activism continue to enrich us, however old we may be. A life-affirming work.” Professor Stephen Frosh, Birkbeck and author of HAUNTINGS: PSYCHOANALYSIS AND GHOSTLY TRANSMISSION
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Hardback / ISBN: 9781781681398 / $26.95 / £16.99 / $32.00CAN / 320 pages
For more information on OUT OF TIME: THE PLEASURES AND THE PERILS OF AGEING or to buy the book visit: http://www.versobooks.com/books/1469-out-of-time
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BRISTOL EVENT
November 27 2013, 7.45pm – 8.45pm, Bristol Festival of Ideas
Join Lynne Segal at the Bristol Festival of Ideas as she looks at feminism and ageing.
Book your place here: http://www.versobooks.com/events/744-age-is-a-feminist-issue-lynne-segal-discusses-her-new-book-out-of-time
LONDON EVENT
December 16 2013, 2.00pm – 9.00pm, Birkbeck Institute for Social Research, London
Temporal Vertigo: The Paradoxes of Ageing
Join Lynne Segal for a seminar to think about human temporality and issues of ageing. Discussions will not only confront our fears and prejudices around ageing, but also consider the paradoxes of
memory, forms of resistance, desire and the unexpected delights that can accompany the inevitable heartbreak and losses of any long life.
Speakers will include:
Helena Kennedy (Chair), Lisa Baraitser, Matt Cook, Stephen Frosh, Mandy Merck, Daniel Monk, Laura Mulvey, Avery Gordon, Simon Watney and Lynne Segal
This event is free but booking is essential— book your place here:
http://www.versobooks.com/events/747-temporal-vertigo-the-paradoxes-of-ageing
Organiser: Birkbeck Institute for Social Research with Birkbeck Department of Psychosocial Studies
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