Growing Old in a Better World: Age and Ageing in the Utopian Imagination

As utopias question social ills and express human wants and unfulfilled dreams, they offer insights into the problems, desires and ideals of a certain time. This book uses this lens to examine cultural representations of ageing and old age in utopian writings from the Renaissance till today.

The individual chapters offer detailed analyses and interpretations of numerous utopias from Thomas More’s Utopia (1516) to contemporary science fiction. Through close readings, the book explores age-rel...