Technogenarians investigates the older person?s experiences of health, illness, science, and technology. It presents a greater theoretical and empirical understanding of the biomedical aspects of aging bodies, minds, and emotions, and the rise of gerontechnology industries and professions­­. 

• A unique scholarly investigation into elders as technology users
• Emphasizes the need to put aging, science, and technology in the center of analyses of health and illness
• Explores the rise of gerontechnology industries and professions­

• Offers a critical study of the transformation of aging bodies, minds, and emotions into medical problems in need of medical solutions

• Combines two scholarly areas - Science and Technology Studies and the Sociology of Aging, Health, and Illness - to produce innovative scholarship

Notes on Contributors.

1 Theorising technogenarians: a sociological approach to ageing, technology and health (Kelly Joyce and Meika Loe).

2 A history of the future: the emergence of contemporary anti-ageing medicine (Courtney Everts Mykytyn).

3 In the vanguard of biomedicine? The curious and contradictory case of anti-ageing medicine (Jennifer R. Fishman, Richard A. Settersten Jr and Michael A. Flatt).

4 Science, medicine and virility surveillance: 'sexy seniors' in the pharmaceutical imagination (Barbara L. Marshall).

5 Time, clinic technologies, and the making of refl exive longevity: the cultural work of time left in an ageing society (Sharon R. Kaufman).

6 Aesthetic anti-ageing surgery and technology: women's friend or foe? (Abigail T. Brooks).

7 ‘A second youth’: pursuing happiness and respectability through cosmetic surgery in Finland (Taina Kinnunen).

8 Ageing in place and technologies of place: the lived experience of people with dementia in changing social, physical and technological environments (Katherine Brittain, Lynne Corner, Louise Robinson and John Bond).

9 Liberating the wanderers: using technology to unlock doors for those living with dementia (Johanna M. Wigg).

10 Output that counts: pedometers, sociability and the contested terrain of older adult fitness walking (Denise A. Copelton).

11 Doing it my way: old women, technology and wellbeing (Meika Loe).

12 'But obviously not for me': robots, laboratories and the defi ant identity of elder test users (Louis Neven).

Index.

"Technogenarians is timely volume about the devices, spaces, and medicines, which ‘technogenarians' use as they negotiate health and illness in everyday life." (Sociology of Health & Illness, 2011)Kelly Joyce is Associate Professor of Sociology at the College of William and Mary. Her research on technology, science, and health has been published in Science as Culture, Social Studies of Science, and other academic journals. Dr Joyce’s book Magnetic Appeal: MRI and the Myth of Transparency (2008) offers a sociological exploration of magnetic resonance imaging technology. Her current research examines medical knowledge about, and the experiences of people who live with, autoimmune illnesses.

Meika Loe is Associate Professor of Sociology and Women’s Studies at Colgate University in New York. Her critical scholarship on culture, age, medicine, technology, and gender has appeared in a range of academic journals including Contexts, Gender & Society, Feminism & Psychology, Symbolic Interaction, Sexualities, and Sociological Inquiry. She is the author of The Rise of Viagra: How the Little Blue Pill Changed Sex in America (2004), and a forthcoming book on the oldest old in America.

Science and technology have become central to the daily experiences of health and illness for older people, from pharmaceuticals to walkers and cell phones. This has resulted in 'technogenarians' − technologically savvy older people. In investigating elders' experiences of health, illness, science, and technology, the authors emphasize the need to put ageing, science, and technology at the centre of analyses of health and illness.

Technogenarians adds theoretical and empirical depth to our understanding of two concurrent trends: firstly, the biomedical aspects of ageing bodies, minds, and emotions, including the development of anti-ageing or longevity medicine; and secondly, the rise of gerontechnology industries and professions, which largely accept the ageing processes and provide technology to assist the changes brought on by ageing. The book theorizes how and where these two trends overlap and differ in relation to ageism, health, and illness.