Introduction

As the image of the ageing woman is reflected and refracted across cultural texts and media, our collection brings together experts in literature and visual culture to foster a much-needed dialogue across disciplines. In doing so, it analyses the power these constructions exert over public and private conceptions of age, and explores the ways in which the figure of the ageing woman is reimagined or reinscribed across media, genres and cultures. The contributors engage in transnational, multi-disciplinary research methods, including fields of life writing, memory studies, postcolonial and feminist approaches. Our hope is that the book’s deliberately intersectional and cross-disciplinary structure will foster a fruitful dialogue across disciplinary and generic boundaries.