Margaret Morganroth Gullette
Senexa. The goddess of age studies, whose motto is "End Ageism," is represented as Michelangelo's Libyan Sybil. Her strong shoulders and muscular arms hold a huge open book.
Her skin color and silvery gray hair were conferred by photographers Laura Brody and Fran Forman.
The book that Senexa reads contains the wisdom of ages, collected from the guardians of the life course. The crone-goddess is interrupting her instruction of the children behind her, who reverently discuss anti-ageist lore, in order to cast a deprecating look at the perpetrators of ageism, invisible beneath her feet. Her teachings are dedicated to the agewise.
Essays
“Florcita la Suerte,” Indiana Review 22 #1 (2000): 61-71. https://sanjuandelsursistercityproject.wordpress.com/writers-views/156-2/
Essay. Literary/cultural quarterly.
Nicaragua. Education for Women. Literacy. International funding.
Honor: Cited as notable in Best American Essays 2001.
“Age Studies as Cultural Studies,” Handbook on the Humanities and Aging, ed. Thomas Cole, Ruth Ray, and Robert Kastenbaum, second edition (New York: Springer, 2000). For Aged by Culture.
Chapter in book, invited.
Age studies. Cultural Studies.
“Secret Spaces of Childhood,” Michigan Quarterly Review 67 #3 (2000).
Essay. Literary quarterly.
Childhood. Geography. Age autobiography.
“Seniority Envy” (my title) Boston Globe Focus section, November 28, 1999.
Op-ed.
Middle ageism. Seniority. Work.
“Letting Americans Dream of Intergenerational Harmony” (my title), Miami Herald, October 10, 1999.
Op-ed.
Buena Vista Social Club. Age grading. Music. Social Relations.
“The Other End of the Fashion Cycle,” Figuring Age: Women, Bodies, Generations, ed. Kathleen Woodward. (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1999).
Chapter in edited collection (invited). Revised from Declining to Decline.
Fashion. Psychology. Aged by culture. Author’s mother. Age autobiography.
“My Mother’s Paycheck,” Ms. Magazine, May 1998.
Article. Revised for Declining to Decline.
Progress narrative. Economics of the life course. Family memoir. Age autobiography. Gender. Work. Money. Mother.
“The End of the Workday – II: Discrimination against the Middle-Aged Pervades the Workplace at High Cost.” Nation, 226 (January 5, 1998): 21-22. Revised as “It doesn’t pay to be middle-aged,” Boston Globe, April 19, 1998.
Articles.
Middle Ageism. Political economy. Jobs. Unemployment. Seniority. Age discrimination.
“The High Costs of Middle Ageism,” Brandeis Review 18 #4 [fall 1998]: 22-25. Reprinted in California Labor and Employment Law Quarterly 12 #4 (Fall/Winter 1998): 8-9.
Article.
Middle ageism. Midlife. Political economy. Jobs. Unemployment. Seniority. Age discrimination.
“The Politics of Middle Ageism,” New Political Science 20 # 3 (Fall 1998): 263-282
Essay. Revised for Aged by Culture.
Middle ageism. Midlife. Political economy. Jobs. Unemployment. Seniority. Age discrimination.
“Perilous Parenting: The Deaths of Children and the Fear of Aging in Contemporary American Fiction," Twentieth Century Literature Criticism, Vol. 78, ed. Jennifer Gariepy. (New York: Gale, 1998). Reprinted from Michigan Quarterly Review 31 # 1 (Winter 1992). Revised for Aged by Culture.
Essay.
Parenting. Death. Aging. Fiction. US literature.
Honor: selected for literary critical anthology.
“Midlife Discourses in the Twentieth-Century United States: An Essay on the Sexuality, Ideology, and Politics of 'Middle Ageism,'" Welcome to Middle Age! (And Other Cultural Fictions), ed. Richard A Shweder (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998): 3-44.
Lead chapter in edited collection (invited).
Middle ageism. Midlife. Narrative. US social issues. Politics. Ideology. Sexuality.
"Menopause as Magic Marker: Discursive Consolidation in the United States, and Strategies for Cultural Combat,” Reinterpreting Menopause. Cultural and Philosophical Issues, ed. Paul Komesaroff, Philipa Rothfield, and Jeanne Daly (New York and London: Routledge, 1997): 176-199. Revised and reissued, 2013.
Chapter in book (invited). Revised for Aged by Culture.
Menopause. Cultural history. Discourses on aging. Decline narrative. Social resistance. Dysfunction industries.
"Age" and "Aging," Encyclopedia of Feminist Literary Theory, ed. Elizabeth Kowaleski-Wallace (New York: Garland, 1997). https://www.perlego.com/book/1695756/encyclopedia-of-feminist-literary-theory-pdf?campaignid=436439430&adgroupid=1353500607580773&msclkid=3ef6fe34106c1b678cc496327d51dd41
Encyclopedia entry.
Feminism. Literary theory. Aging. Age.
“Midlife Heroines, ‘Older and Freer,’" The Kenyon Review 18 # 2 (Spring 1996): 10-31. Revised for Declining to Decline.
Essay.
Midlife. Women. Fiction. Aging. Life Course.
“The New Gender Politics of Midlife Bodies,” Radcliffe Quarterly 82 #3 (Fall 1996): 20.
Article (invited).
Midlife. Body. Gender.
"Being Straight," The North American Review 281 #1 (1996): 36-40. www.jstor.org/stable/25125981.
Essay. Literary quarterly.
Heterosexuality. Homosexuality. Memoir. Adolescence.
“The Wonderful Woman on the Pavement: Middle Ageism in the Postmodern Economy,” Dissent (Fall 1995).
Article.
Middle ageism. Midlife. Political economy. Unemployment. Gender.
“One Necessary Future,” Re-Visioning Feminism. NY: Feminist Press, 1995: 34.
Article (invited).
Feminism. Age. Aging. Age studies. Anti-ageism.
"Inventing the "Postmaternal" Woman, 1898-1927: Idle, Unwanted, and out of a Job." Feminist Studies 21 # 2 (1995): 221-53. doi:10.2307/3178261.
Essay.
History. Midlife. Gender. Postmaternity. Economics. Stereotypes. Motherhood.
"Male Midlife Sexuality in a Gerontocratic Economy: The Privileged Stage of the Long Midlife in Nineteenth-Century Age Ideology." Journal of the History of Sexuality 5 # 1 (July 1994): 58-89. First use of the term “the long midlife.”
Essay.
Midlife. Cultural History. Age ideology. Sexuality. Men. Gender. Gerontocracy.
“A Deep Respect for Students: The Heart of Good Teaching,” Change, May/June 1994, p. 42. Reprint, for the 25th Anniversary Edition of The Best of Change, from July/August 1984.
Article.
Education. Teaching. Student-teacher relations.
"Menopause as Magic Marker: Discursive Consolidation/Strategies for Cultural Combat." Discourse 17 # 1 (1994): 93-122. www.jstor.org/stable/41389352.
Journal article, peer-reviewed. Revised for chapter in Declining to Decline
Menopause. Women. Hormone replacement therapy. Feminism. Age. Age discrimination. Discourse. Estrogens. Women’s health.
“‘The Piano’: imperfect pitch,” Boston Globe, Dec. 3, 1993: 51.
Commentary.
Gender relations. Film. Cultural criticism.
"What, Menopause Again? A Guide to Cultural Combat," Ms., July-August 1993: 34-37. Revised for Declining to Decline, chapter 6.
Article (invited). Commentary.
Menopause. Cultural construction of the Life Course. Midlife. Discourse. Resistance. Women’s Health. Dysfunction industries.
"Ordinary Pain," North American Review, Spring, 1993.
Essay in literary quarterly. Revised for Declining to Decline.
Chronic pain. Body.
"All Together Now: The New Sexual Politics of Midlife Bodies," Michigan Quarterly Review. Special Issue: "The Male Body," Fall 1993. Reprinted in The Male Body: Features, Destinies, Exposures Volume I, ed. Laurence Goldberg (Ann Arbor: Michigan University Press, 1994).
Essay in literary quarterly. Essay in edited collection. Revised for Declining to Decline.
Men. Midlife. Sexuality. Gender relations. The Body.
"Creativity, Aging, Gender: A Study of Their Intersections, 1910-1935," lead chapter, Aging and Gender in Literature. Studies in Creativity, ed. Anne M. Wyatt-Brown and Janice Rossen. University of Virginia Press, 1993:19-48. First use of “aged by culture.” First use of “age studies.”
Chapter in edited collection (invited).
Gender. Age and creativity. Writers’ block. Life-course narratives. Intersections.
"Why Children Die in Contemporary American Fiction,” Michigan Quarterly Review 31 #1 (Winter 1992): 56-72. Revised for Aged by Culture as “ Perilous Parenting: The Deaths of Children and the Construction of Aging-into-the-Midlife”
Essay in literary/cultural quarterly.
Death in Fiction. Parenting. Midlife. Fear of aging-into-the-midlife. American literature. Children.
“Leading Discussion in a Lecture Course: Some Maxims and an Exhortation,” Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, 1992.
Article.
Educational innovation. Pedagogy. Discussion leading.
“Eliza Farnham. Brief Life of a Visionary Woman,” Harvard Magazine, November 1991.
Article.
19th century Women. Feminism. Prison reform. Teaching.
“Nicaragua 1991: Going On,” North American Review, September 1991.
Essay.
Nicaragua. Autobiography.
“A Good Girl,” North American Review, 1991.
Essay. Revised for Declining to Decline.
Reading. Revenge. Memoir. Dumas. Richard Wright. Charlotte Bronte.
Honor: Cited as Notable in Best American Essays 1991.
“Letter from Nicaragua: How Not to Be a Tourist,” Yale Review 79 # 1 (May 1990): 93-116.
Essay in literary/cultural quarterly.
Nicaragua. Autobiography. International aid.
“Autumnal Face” ("No Spring Nor Summer Beauty Hath Such Grace"), Lear's 2 #10 (January 1990): 135. “Letting A Son Become His Own Man” ("Letting Your Child Go Free," Lear's 3 #12 (February 1991): 36. "Face Lift Con.” (“Under the Knife of the System"), Lear's 3 #1 ( March 1991): 91. Some were revised for Declining to Decline. (Titles in parentheses are my originals.)
Articles.
Progress. Mother-son relations. Midlife. Women. Cosmetic surgery. Beauty.
Dysfunction industries.
"Saul Bellow: Inward and Upward Past Distraction," The Saul Bellow Journal 9 #1 (1990). Revised as a chapter of Safe at Last.
Essay.
Fiction. Saul Bellow. Fear of aging-past-youth.
"The Tears and Joys are in the Things," Critical Essays on the Fiction of Anne Tyler, ed. C. Ralph Stephens (U. Press of Mississippi, 1990). Originally published in New England Review/Breadloaf Quarterly, 1985. Revised for Safe at Last.
Essay in Literary/cultural quarterly.
Fiction. Adulthood. Anne Tyler.
"Midlife Exhilaration.” "Hers" column, New York Times Magazine, January 29, 1989. https://www.nytimes.com/1989/01/29/magazine/hers-midlife-exhilaration.html
Article.
Midlife. Progress. Women. History of the emotions.
“Afterword,” Daughters of Danaus by Mona Caird. NY: Feminist Press of CUNY. Introduction by Elaine Showalter. 1894 feminist novel I discovered in Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College.
Essay.
New Woman novel. Women’s liberation. Caird. Mother-daughter relations.
Social pressure.
“The Tears (and Joys) Are in the Things: Adulthood in Anne Tyler's Novels,” New England Review and Bread Loaf Quarterly, 1985. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40374887?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents
Essay in literary quarterly. Revised for Safe at Last in the Middle Years (1988).
Anne Tyler. Fiction. Adulthood.
“A Deep Respect for Students: The Heart of Good Teaching,” Change, July/August 1984.
Article.
Pedagogy.
"The Exile of Adulthood: Pedophilia and the Decline Novel,” Novel 17 #3 (Spring l984): 215-232. Accessible on Jstor.
Essay in literary quarterly.
Fear of adulthood. Pedophilia. Decline narrative.
The Art and Craft of Teaching, edited by Margaret Morganroth Gullette. Harvard University Press, 1986. Originally published by the Danforth Center for Teaching and Learning, 1984.
Edited collection.
Pedagogical innovation. Teaching.
“To the Ground.” North American Review 268, No. 2 (June 1983): 58-59.
Essay.
Memoir. Father. Nature. Gardening.
“Women Studying Women: Kikuyus and Classmates” (review of Symposium II), Radcliffe Quarterly (September 1982): 9-10.
Article.
Reunion. Feminism. Age autobiography. Progress.
“Unclassified Affections.” Massachusetts Review XXIII #4 (Winter 1982).
Fiction.
Friendship. Marriage.
“Going Home.” Massachusetts Review XXII, #3 (Autumn 1981).
Fiction.
Father. Dying. Family memoir. Autobiography.
“Liberating Dick and Jane,” Radcliffe Quarterly 65 #4 (December 1979): 13-15.
Article.
Children’s literature. Reading.
“Virginia Woolf's Sanity: ‘My Root is Firm,’ “North American Review (Fall 1979): 56-61. Alternate title, “Who’s Afraid of the Middle Years?” https://www.jstor.org/stable/25125721?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents
Review-essay.
Virginia Woolf’s Diaries. Psychology. Midlife. Women’s liberation.
“The Condition of the Short Story.” New England Review I # 4 (1979): 521-531.
Essay in literary/cultural quarterly.
Short fiction. Literary criticism.