Aging Men, Masculinities and Modern Medicine

Aging Menexplores the multiple socio-historical contexts surrounding men'¬"s aging bodies in modern medicine from a global perspective. The first of its kind, it investigates the interrelated aspects of aging, masculinities and biomedicine, allowing for a timely reconsideration of the conceptualisation of aging men within the recent explosion of science studies on men'¬"s health and biotechnologies including anti-aging perspectives. This book discusses both healthy and diseased states of aging men in medical practices, bringing together theoretical and empirical conceptualisations. Divided into three parts it covers: historical epistemology of aging, bodies and masculinity and the way in which the social sciences have theorised the aging body and gender. material practices and processes by which biotechnology, medical assemblages and men'¬"s aging bodies relate to concepts of health and illness. aging experience and its impact upon men'¬"s roles and identity. Highlighting how aging men'¬"s bodies serve as trajectories for wider issues of masculinity, and the way in which men'¬"s social status and men'¬"s roles are made and understood in medical cultures, this innovative volume offers a multidisciplinary dialogue between sociology of health and illness, anthropology of the body and gender studies.