Meaningful Aging: Humanist Perspectives
- Start: 1 January 2019
- End: Spring 2024
The main objective of this project is to add, from a humanist perspective, new interdisciplinary insights, and research results to the current academic debate on ageing.
Description
The international UvH research project Goed Ouder Worden (Aging Well) was initiated by (now emeritus) Professor Peter Derkx and continued by his successors Joachim Duyndam and Anja Machielse.
The main objective of this project was to add, from a humanist perspective, new interdisciplinary insights to the current academic debate on aging. The humanistic meaning-making perspective on aging, complements the predominantly biomedical and sociological debates in the research field and ideals such as ‘healthy’, ‘active’ and ‘successful’ aging. Researchers in this project developed a nuanced and differentiated ideal for ageing well in the second half of life from a humanist perspective, emphasising existential issues and meaning in life and the capacity to respond autonomously to the challenges of ageing.
The research project resulted in numerous scientific and popular books, articles, and contributions to symposia and congresses.
The project recently concluded with the publication of two books by the prestigious US publisher Palgrave Macmillan (part of Springer Nature).
In the first book, Meaningful Aging from a Humanist Perspective, a theory of meaning in seven dimensions is developed by Peter Derkx and commented on by Anthony Pinn, Professor of Humanities at Rice University.
Relatedly, the second book, Meaning and Aging: Humanist Perspectives, discusses issues around meaningful aging by renowned international scholars such as Carol Ryff, Ricca Edmondson, Kate de Medeiros and (former) UvH researchers Joachim Duyndam, Anja Machielse, Wander van der Vaart & Pien Bos, Hanne Laceulle & Joep Dohmen.
Researchers
Prof. Peter Derkx, Prof. Joachim Duyndam, Prof. Anja Machielse
Partners
Rice University, Department of Religion; School of Humanities
The main objective of this book (editors: prof. Joachim Duyndam and prof. Anja Machielse) is to add new interdisciplinary insights, and research results to the current academic debate on ageing.