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David Lodge and Jim Crace join the public in the Great Ageing Debate at Brunel University

Members of the public are invited to attend this free event which will discuss Lodge's recent book Deaf Sentence, considering disability and independence after retirement and Crace's Arcadia, featuring an ageing businessman's memories of youth and his desire for a public legacy.

Brunel's Fiction and Cultural Mediation of Ageing Project (FCMAP) has established volunteer reading groups across London involving 90 older people, average age of 70.

Already every participant has read both Lodge's and Crace's novels and most will attend Re-imagining Ageing to engage with and challenge the authors.

Audience members can also participate actively in the major contemporary debate on ageing by directly quizzing the authors as regards their representations of older people. It should be a lively, dynamic and provocative engagement and not the usual 'appreciation of authors' work' event.

As an open forum Re-imagining Ageing will also contribute to the FCMAP team's research which adopts an innovative synthesis of Arts and Social Sciences approaches, moving the view of ageing and attitudes towards the elderly beyond the traditional perspectives found in biomedical sciences and the social care sector.

Do join the Brunel team and the reading public in this exciting contemporary debate!

When Wednesday 3 February 2010, 5.30-7.30pm
Where Howell Lecture Theatre, Brunel University, Uxbridge, Middlesex, UB8 3PH

Free attendance; email booking preferred (and guarantees place).

Sponsored by the ESRC on behalf of a joint UK Research Councils initiative, the New Dynamics of Ageing programme.

For more information about the event or FCMAP and for free booking of a seat for the Re-imagining Ageing event, please contact Natalia Clarke, FCMAP Administrator:

Email natalia.clarke@brunel.ac.uk
Tel 01895 267 257

ENDS

For media enquiries please contact:
Hannah Murray | Hannah@communicationsmanagement.co.uk | 01727 737997

Notes to Editors

  • FCMAP deploys an innovative combination of social science and arts methodologies to reveal in-depth the pulse of older people's opinions about ageing in Britain today.

    As well as the London-wide reader groups the project team are also working with Mass Observation at the University of Sussex, asking around 1,000 people to reflect on issues of ageing and representation in diary form. The think-tank Demos will be collaborating with the FCMAP team in producing a policy report.
  • David Lodge is an English author who is especially famous for his campus novels including Nice Work and Small World, both of which have been adapted for television. He has been the recipient of many literary awards and is considered one of the pre-eminent figures in contemporary British fiction.
  • Jim Crace is a Booker-winning author based in London, with a major popular following both in Britain and the United States, winning a prestigious critics award in North America. His major works include Quarantine, Being Dead and most recently, The Pesthouse.