Ageing Cultures, Ageing Concepts
21. bis 23. Jänner 2026 ifk Arkade, Reichsratsstraße 17, 1010 Wien & Online
Herzliche Einladung zur ifk-Tagung
Ageing relations are often understood at the intersection of other forms of othering: through the sociology of cohorts, through debates about ageism and ableism or as a specialty topic of those studying care. But what if we started noticing age as an inherent part of all relations? What new viewpoints might arise when we recognize that everything is always already ageing in time, while also understanding that this process is biological, culturally constructed, and relational? Suddenly, it is no longer just the person with wrinkles, but also a young activist, a depopulated village or a belief in a radiant future that might be said to »not have aged well.«
This conference brings to light the norms and relations that become critical when people, things and ideas come to be seen as aged. It asks scholars, activists, children and artists how ageing occurs in different cultural contexts, and how this complicates overall societal relations and their ideological conundrums. What can we learn from queer, feminist theory and disability studies? How can new concepts shift our view of ageing in relation to one another? How are such concepts themselves subverted by their advancing age? What changing figures and tropes of ageing do we find in literature, film and art? And finally: How can social theory be reconfigured without a middle-aged adult as its ideal actor?
Concept: Julia Boog-Kaminski (Vienna), Ivan Rajković (Vienna)
Participants: Slaven Crnić (Vienna), Stefanie Diekmann (Hildesheim), Lena Ekelund (Hamburg), Jury Everhartz (Vienna), Nanna Heidenreich (Vienna), Ute Holl (Basel), Johanna Hügel (Erfurt), Iza Kavedžija (Camebridge), Sofie Kronberger (Vienna), Moritz Matschke (Linz), Thomas Macho (Berlin), Anna Pech (Linz), Georg Pöchhacker (Vienna), Peter Ott (Hamburg), Simon(e) van Saarloos (Berkeley), Sophie Emilia Seidler (Vienna), Yōko Tawada (Berlin), Kristine Tornquist (Vienna) a.o.
PROGRAM
Wednesday, 21 January 2026
14.00 Welcome and Introduction: Julia Boog-Kaminski and Ivan Rajković
14.30 Nanna Heidenreich: »Until the moment it is upon us old age is something that only affects other people«. Reading Simone de Beauvoir (but not like Eribon)
16.00 Sofie Kronberger: Reading Minds and Sensing Bodies. Understanding Re-Configurations of Patienthood in Digital Capitalism
17.00 Simon(e) van Saarloos: Assigned Age at Birth. Why Queers Should be Against Ageism
19.00 Film Screening und Gespräch: die amitié (ca. 100 Minuten), Regie: Ute Holl und Peter Ott
Thursday, 22 January 2026
10.00 Slaven Crnić: A Tomorrow Scrapped. Gender, Age and Postimperial Futurism in August Cesarec’s »Today’s Russia«
11.00 Johanna Hügel: Aged and True Cultures Versus New and Degenerate Cultures. Russia’s Quest for Alliances in the Global South and Postcolonial Theory
14.00 Ivan Rajković: Can the Dying Peasant Speak?
15.00 Iza Kavedžija: Engaged Aging. Longer Working Lives in Japan
16.30 Jury Everhartz und Kristine Tornquist im Gespräch mit Thomas Macho über die Kammeroper Abendsonne
17.30 Yōko Tawada: Send-bo-ote (Lesung und Gespräch)
Friday, 23 January 2026
10.00 Lena Ekelund: World Saviours and Final Tender Moments. New Narratives of Female Ageing
11.00 Sophie Emilia Seidler: »Das Matriarchat heißt Hannelore«. Generational Conflicts among Mothers, Daughters, Feminists, and Anorexics
14.00 Stefanie Diekmann: This is Not About Scarlett Johansson
15.30: Gedanken von Kindern und Jugendlichen zu Kulturen des Alterns. Geleitet von Moritz Matschke, Anna Pech und Georg Pöchhacker
Supported by Stadt Wien
