This study used data from the 2008 wave of the Health and Retirement Study to examine variations in relationships among selected psychosocial characteristics, race/ethnicity and expectations of nursing home utilization in the United States, with a particular focus on Latino/a subgroups. This study sought to test a modified version of the Andersen and Newman model of health service utilization. Findings revealed that expectations of nursing home utilization remained lower among Latino/as than in the Non-Latino White sub-groups, even when levels of need, enabling, and predisposing factors were controlled for. However, for Mexican Origin respondents (who are often arbitrarily combined with other individuals of various Latino nationalities as one homogenous group) never differed significantly from the White reference group. The inclusion of the selected psychosocial characteristics (attitudes towards one's own aging, personal mastery, religiosity, and perceived family support/ family satisfaction) increased the explanatory power of regression models tested. Having a high sense of personal mastery, as well as having a more positive attitude towards one's own aging, were associated with lower expectations of nursing home use. An important implication of this study is that the Latino/a population in the United States should not be treated as a homogenous, pan-ethnic group, particularly in regards to health service use. Also, psychosocial characteristics are relevant when considering expectations for nursing home use

<p>Growing "old" in contemporary American society often means being seen as a problem: you threaten the stability of Social Security and Medicare; cutting-edge science seeks a cure for what ages you; cosmetic companies and health magazines sell you products and strategies for holding on to your youth as long as possible. <em>The Age of Obsolescence: Senescence and Scientific Rejuvenation in Twentieth Century America</em> traces the emergence of these attitudes toward old age back to the turn of the twentieth century when a publicly shared conception of aging was emerging in relation to advances in science and medicine, industrialized labor practices, a slowly developing welfare state, demographic observations of increased life expectancy, changing gender roles and expressions of national identity. During that time, the quest for the fountain of youth shifted from the stuff of legend to a driving motivation behind modern science.</p><p>In the four chapters of this dissertation, I bring literary critical methods to bear on literary and scientific texts, public health tracts, journalistic accounts, advertisements and public records. Through this survey of science, government and popular culture, I document the formation of several cultural narratives of aging--or, formulaic ways of addressing aging produced by repeated metaphors, imagery and story lines--that circulated with reciprocal influence through all of these spheres, determining attitudes toward, and experiences of, aging at that moment and into the present. After briefly exploring our contemporary "anti-aging" culture, the four chapters of <em>The Age of Obsolescence</em> address the framing of a moral responsibility for aging individuals to "take care of themselves" as a duty to their nation; the association of aging with obsolescence and its influence on worker's experiences and industrial practices; the scientific and cultural construction of aging as a disease in need of professional intervention; and the proposed "cure" for this problem of aging: scientific rejuvenation, particularly the glandular rejuvenation fad of the 1920s. My conclusion traces this fervor for scientific rejuvenation into the present, showing how the turn-of-the-century cultural logic of aging has become a taken-for-granted framework of American popular culture today. In illuminating the historical moment when the "problem" of aging was located in the bodies of aged individuals, I point toward solutions that may arise not from scientific discovery, but from rewriting these cultural narratives of aging and old age and restructuring the national practices that stem from them.</p> / Dissertation

This thesis focuses on four women-directed films as a way to illustrate some characteristics shared by the new Catalan creative documentary: El cielo gira ( The Sky Turns, dir. Mercedes Álvarez, 2004), Nedar (Swim, dir. Carla Subirana, 2008), La plaga (The Plague, dir. Neus Ballús, 2013), and Penèlope (Penelope, dir. Eva Vila, 2018). My aim is to highlight their alternative cinematographic strategies, which stray from the hegemonic discourses of documentary filmmaking. In so doing, I analyze these films from three different angles: the relationship between the filmmaker and the material world; the alternative modalities of time; and the haptic connection between the spectator and the screen. Instead of preparing a traditional thesis in manuscript form, I engage with these films through a video-essay, the most appropriate mode of academic rhetoric and presentation to address this topic (Keathley 190). Entitled Cinema “Turns”: Catalan Creative Documentary, my video-essay articulates my study into three parts: in the first part, I analyze the limits of the realist discourse; in the second, I focus on how these films approach temporality; and in the third, I address their haptic visuality. To view the accompanying video essay, please download the additional file below.

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Thèse en recherche-création / Cette recherche-création doctorale, dont l’un des principaux objectifs consiste à éprouver la portée heuristique de l’écriture comme recherche, est composée d’un recueil intitulé Murmurations - et d’un essai réflexif que j’appréhende comme mon Carnet de voyage-thèse. Fondamentalement articulés, ils procèdent des expérimentations d’écritures auxquelles je me suis prêtée avec trois autres femmes : Catherine, Fanie et France. Dans le cadre de ma thèse, je nous ai invitées à écrire nos vieillissements. Le recueil Murmurations, destiné à être publié, réunit les huit textes que nous avons produits, mes co-autrices et moi, à la suite d’une correspondance in absentia que nous devions entreprendre avec les personnes que nous considérons respectivement comme nos pères. Ces derniers ont un point commun, celui d’avoir reçu, au cours des 10 années précédant le début de ma recherche, un diagnostic d’Alzheimer ou d’une maladie apparentée (généralement associée au vieillissement et, plus précisément, au vieillissement du cerveau). Je reproduis ci-dessous la quatrième de couverture de Murmurations, le recueil d’écritures de vieillissements dont, en tant que chercheuse et initiatrice du projet, j’ai fait l’édition : Murmurations Pratiques d’écritures multiples et multiformes saisies en plein vol. Recueillies ici, ces écritures de France Brûlé, Fanie Pelletier, Catherine Lépine-Lafrance et Karine Bellerive composent une fascinante chorégraphie. Écrire les vieillissements. Écrire ses vieillissements, ses rapports changeants à soi, à son père, aux héritages et aux deuils, à la littérature, à l’écriture, au temps, au monde… Me situant à l’intersection des cultural studies et des aging studies, j’aborde dans mon Carnet de voyage-thèse les différents enjeux de vieillissements qui se sont révélés à travers nos expérimentations d’écritures, à mes co-autrices et moi. La réflexion que je déploie dans cet essai réflexif se situe à l’encontre des conceptions strictement chronologiques, et en cela réductrices, du vieillissement. Sous-tendu par une épistémologie résolument féministe, l’ensemble de mon projet vise, au contraire, à en montrer l’hétérogénéité et les aspérités - bien au-delà des perspectives qui l’envisagent d’emblée comme déclin et, à l’autre bout du spectre, des injonctions au successful aging. J’appréhende ainsi les vieillissements en ce qu’ils sont informés par nombre de discours, de pratiques et de rapports de pouvoir et en ce qu’ils participent de multiples temporalités. Ponctué d’écritures en images, mon Carnet de voyage-thèse est découpé en six parties, lesquelles peuvent être abordées dans le désordre. Les Lignes de départ offrent cependant quelques clés de lecture. Suivent la Station Femmes et littératures, la Station Deuils, les Passages et passagers : écrire dans la maison du père, la Station Héritières et héritage et la Station Écritures. Dans les Lignes de départ, j’expose les grandes lignes de mon projet : les questions et préoccupations qui l’ont initié, ainsi que les choix sur lesquels il repose sur le plan méthodologique. Je donne également un bref aperçu de l’ensemble de l’essai. Suit la présentation de mes co-autrices : Catherine, Fanie et France. J’aborde enfin, succinctement, les considérations épistémologiques, éthiques et politiques qui m’ont guidée tout au long de ma recherche. Mon travail, dans la Station Femmes et littératures, repose sur mon appropriation du matérialisme culturel de Raymond Williams, et plus spécifiquement du concept de structure of feeling. Je réfléchis, d’une part, aux manières dont nos pratiques littéraires, à Catherine, Fanie, France et moi, s’inscrivent au sein des littératures et des littératures de femmes. Et j’observe, d’autre part, les rapports de pouvoir et les régimes de valeur qui les traversent. Dans la Station Deuils, je m’applique à problématiser et à historiciser les deuils auxquels je nous ai vues confrontées, Catherine, Fanie, France et moi, à travers nos écritures de vieillissements. Je m’intéresse à ce qui les constitue comme deuils et aux manières dont nous les négocions à travers nos écritures. Dans les Passages et passagers : écrire dans la maison du père, je pose la question du père. Toute cette section met en quelque sorte les pères sous rature, dans l’optique les penser au-delà du sens commun - largement fondé sur une idéologie du sang. J’observe ensuite les pères et les rapports fille-père qui sont écrits par des autrices à différentes époques, de même que les pères et les rapports fille-père que nous écrivons nous-mêmes, Catherine, Fanie, France et moi. Je me penche plus précisément sur ce que génèrent ces écritures de pères. Ma pratique d’écriture réflexive, dans la Station Héritières et héritage, s’inspire de celle de Maggie Nelson dans Les Argonautes (2015). Je m’intéresse au travail de l’héritage, soit aux enjeux que ce travail soulève, aux contraintes et aux libertés qui le fondent et à ce vers quoi il nous oriente, mes co-autrtices et moi. J’adopte une perspective derridienne dans la Station Écritures afin d’appréhender l’écriture en tant que trace, en tant qu’inscription. J’ouvre le concept pour montrer comment diverses approches de l’écriture posent différentes questions et m’amènent à penser différents enjeux, dont plusieurs s’articulent à des enjeux de vieillissements. J’expose d’abord comment nos expérimentations d’écritures, à Catherine, Fanie, France et moi, s’inscrivent dans un souci de soi et des autres. Je présente ensuite les matérialités qui les constituent. Je m’intéresse enfin à certains enjeux de pouvoir qui les traversent ainsi qu’à leur force performative. / This doctoral research-creation, one of whose main objectives is to test the heuristic scope of writing as research, is made up of a collection entitled Murmurations and a reflective essay that I envision as my Carnet de voyage-thèse, or logbook/thesis. These two intertwined components are an outgrowth of the writing experiments in which I engaged with three other women, namely Catherine, Fanie, and France. As part of my thesis, I invited the four of us to “write our agings”. Murmurations is a collection (destined to be published) of eight texts that my co-authors and I produced following in absentia correspondence we set out to pursue with the people we respectively consider to be our fathers. All of them shared the commonality of having been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s or a related illness (generally associated with aging and, more specifically, with brain aging) within the 10 years prior to the start of my research. Below I have reproduced (freely translated into English) the back cover of Murmurations, the collection of writings which I edited, as the researcher and project initiator: Murmurations Multiple and multifaceted writings captured in mid-flight. Collected here are writings by France Brûlé, Fanie Pelletier, Catherine Lépine-Lafrance, and Karine Bellerive, which together make up a captivating choreography. To write our agings. To write our agings, changing relationships with ourselves, our fathers, inheritances and mourning, literature, writing, time, the world... Located at the crossroads of cultural studies and aging studies, I take up in my logbook/thesis the various issues of aging that came to light through my own and my co-authors’ writing experiments. The reflection that I develop in this reflective essay is at odds with strictly chronological, and therefore reductive, conceptions of aging. My entire project is underpinned by a resolutely feminist epistemology and quite conversely sets out to show the heterogeneity and rough edges of aging—beyond outlooks of aging seen a priori as a decline or, at the other end of the spectrum, exhortations of successful aging. I understand aging as being informed by a number of discourses, practices, and power relations, and partaking in multiple temporalities. My logbook/thesis is interspersed with images and divided into six parts, which can be approached in any (dis)order. The Lignes de départ or opening lines, however, offer some keys for reading the text. They are followed by the Station Femmes et littératures (women and literatures station), the Station Deuils (mourning station), Passages et passagers : écrire dans la maison du père (passages and passengers: writing in the father’s house), the Station Héritières et héritage (heiresses and inheritance station), and the Station Écritures (writings station). In the opening lines, I outline my project, i.e., the questions and concerns that gave rise to it, as well as the choices on which its methodology is based. I also give a brief overview of the essay as a whole. This is followed by a presentation of my co-authors, Catherine, Fanie, and France. Finally, I briefly discuss the epistemological, ethical, and political considerations that guided me throughout my research. My work in the Station Femmes et littératures is based on my appropriation of Raymond Williams’ cultural materialism, and more specifically the concept of structure of feeling. I reflect on how our (Catherine’s, Fanie’s, France’s, and my own) literary practices are situated within literature and women’s literatures in particular. At the same time, I also observe the power relations and value systems inhabiting these literatures. In the Station Deuils, I attempt to problematize and historicize the mourning that I have seen Catherine, Fanie, France, and myself face through our writings. I am interested in what constitutes this mourning as grief and how we negotiate this grief through our writings. In Passages et passagers : écrire dans la maison du père, I pose the question of the father. This entire section in a sense places fathers under erasure, in order to ponder them beyond common sense (i.e., largely based on an ideology of blood relations). I then look at fathers and daughter-father relationships that have been written about by women authors during different time periods, as well as the fathers and the daughter-father relationships that Catherine, Fanie, France, and I have written ourselves. I look specifically at what emerges from these writings on fathers. My reflective writing practice in the Station Héritières et héritage is inspired by Maggie Nelson’s practice in Les Argonautes (2015). I examine the work of inheritance: the issues that this work raises, its underlying constraints and freedoms, and how it orients my co-authors and me. I adopt a Derridean perspective in the Station Écritures in order to grasp writing as a trace, as an inscription. I break down the concept to show how different approaches to writing raise different questions and lead me to think about different issues, many of which are connected with issues of aging. I first explain how our (Catherine’s, Fanie’s, France’s, and my own) writing experiments participate in care of the self and others. I then discuss their inherent materiality. Finally, I investigate some of their associated power issues and their performative power. Keywords: Aging, writing, literary practices, literatures, women, father, family, Alzheimer’s, mourning, inheritance, perfomativity, feminist epistemology, power relations, cultural studies, aging studies.