Margaret Morganroth Gullette

Areas of Expertise

Cultural Studies; Age Studies; Representations of the Middle Years of Life

Email: mgullett@brandeis.edu

Current Project

Margaret will be working on a book in age studies, tentatively called The Hidden Coercions of Ageism (From the Feminist Country of Later Life).  She will continue to write for the feminist journalists’ blog, WIMNonline.org/WIMNSVoicesBlog.  She also raises funds for the Free High School for Adults / Technology Institute in Newton’s Sister City, San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua.

Biography

Margaret Morganroth Gullette is a cultural critic and prize-winning writer of nonfiction, an internationally known age critic, essayist, and activist. Her latest book, Aged by Culture, was chosen as a “Noteworthy Book of the Year” by the Christian Science Monitor. Declining to Decline: Cultural Combat and the Politics of the Midlife won the Emily Toth Award as the best feminist book on American popular culture. Margaret’s focus on the midlife (the Midlife Fictions series) has expanded to become Age Studies. Age studies from childhood on can be as powerful as studies of gender or race in empowering people to challenge American age culture.

Margaret has written for N.Y. Times, Ms., Nation, Boston Globe, American Scholar, American Prospect, womensenews.org; Feminist Studies, Representations, Journal of the History of Sexuality; she has appeared on “Brian Lehrer,” “The Connection,” WBAI, “To the Best of Our Knowledge,” CultureShocks. A recipient of NEH, ACLS, and Bunting Fellowships, she is a member of PEN-America. Her work is cited by scholars and journalists and used in courses.

In Nicaragua, her work has helped hundreds of adults to become literate and go on to secondary education.

Education

Ph.D., Harvard University

M.A., University of California, Berkeley

B. A., Radcliffe College

Representative Publications

Gullette, Margaret.  Aged By Culture.  Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004.

Gullette, Margaret.  Declining to Decline: Cultural Combat and the Politics of Midlife.  Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 1997.

Links

Selected Publications and Lectures

Newton San Juan 

WIMN' Voices: A Group Blog on Women, Media & News

Women's eNews 

Aged by Culture

Declining to Decline: Cultural Combat and the Politics of the Midlife

Safe at Last in the Middle Years: The Invention of the Midlife Progress Novel

The Daughters of Danaus