Nursing
NURS-338-401, Cross Listed with: GSOC-338-401/HSOC-338-401
“Sweet Little Old Ladies and Sandwiched Daughters”: Social Images and Issues in our Aging Society
W-4:00-7:00
Sarah Hope Kagan
Syllabus (Word doc)
BFS Sector I
This course is an intensive and focused introduction to social gerontology as a trans-disciplinary lens through which to examine aspects of social structure, actions, and consequences in an aging society. A variety of sources are employed to introduce students from any field focused on human behavior and interaction to classical notions of social gerontology and current scholarly inquiry in gerontology. Field work in the tradition of thick description creates a mechanism to engage students in newly gerontological understandings of their life worlds and daily interactions. Weekly field work, observing aspects of age and representations of aging and being old in every day experiences forms, is juxtaposed against close critical readings of classical works in social gerontology and current research literature as well as viewings of film and readings of popular literature as the basis for student analysis. Student participation in the seminar demands careful scrutiny and critical synthesis of disparate intellectual, cultural, and social perspectives using readings and field work and creation of oral and written arguments that extend understandings of the issues at hand in new and substantive ways. Emphasis is placed on analysis of field work and literature through a series of media reports and a final term paper.
NURS-339-401, Cross Listed with: GSOC-339-401/HSOC-339-401
“Aging, Beauty, and Sexuality”: Psychological Gerontology in the 21st Century
T-4:00-7:00
Sarah Hope Kagan
Syllabus (Word doc)
BFS Sector I
This honors course examines the psychological gerontology of advancing age and identity in the 21st century. Examination emphasizes gendered notions of beauty and sexuality in ageing and the life span to foster discourse around historical notions and images of beauty and ugliness in late life in contrast to contemporary messages of attractiveness and age represented by both women and men. The course is designed to create intellectual foundations as place from which to critique socially mediated and personally conveyed images and messages from a variety of media and their influence on intrapersonal and interpersonal constructions and social processes. Contemporary and historical ideas encompassing stereotypical and idealized views of the older person are employed to reflect dialogue around readings and field work. Classical and contemporary scholarship from gerontology, anthropology, biomedicine and surgery, nursing, and marketing among other disciplines as well as select lay literature are critiqued and compared with interpretation of field work to build understandings of diverse individual, familial, and cultural impressions of aging and identity. Skills for participant observer field work in the tradition of thick description are built to allow reflection and analysis of discourse about aging, beauty, sexuality, and other relevant aspects of human identity. This course satisfies the Society & Social Structures Sector for Nursing Class of 2012 and Beyond.