Retirement Topics Reading List

Thank you to Míċeál Vaughan and Judy Howard for compiling this list of helpful articles and book chapters regarding retirement issues for a seminar they led during Winter Quarter 2020.

Click here for a pdf of this list.

Introductory articles and book chapters:

Baldwin, Roger G.  (Ed.)  2018.  Reinventing Academic Retirement.  Wiley.  Online at https://onlinelibrary-wiley-com.offcampus.lib.washington.edu/toc/15360741/2018/2018/182

Dreifus, Claudia. (2017). ‘Writing the Script for Your Next Act,’ New York Times, Aug. 4, 2017.  Online at https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/04/your-money/designing-your-own-retirement-with-passions-in-mind.html

Ellis, Carolyn; Mitchell Allen; Arthur P. Bochner; Kenneth J.Gergen; Mary M. Gergen; Ronald J. Pelias; and Laurel Richardson. (2017). ‘Living the Post-University Life: Academics Talk About Retirement’ Qualitative Inquiry, Vol. 23 (pp. 575-588). Online at https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1077800417716392

*Moen, Phyllis. (2016). Encore Adulthood: Boomers on the Edge of Risk, Renewal, and Purpose. New York, Oxford University Press. Online at https://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199357277.001.0001/acprof-9780199357277-chapter-1?print=pdf

*Nussbaum, Martha C. and Saul Levmore (2017). Aging Thoughtfully: Conversations about Retirement, Romance, Wrinkles, and Regret. New York: Oxford University Press. Online at https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/washington/detail.action?docID=5050969

 

Aging –  Facts/Fictions and Ageism:  

Applewhite, Ashton.  2016.  This Chair Rocks: A Manifesto Against Ageism.  New York NY:  Celadon Books.

Brooks, Arthur C.’Your Professional Decline Is Coming (Much) Sooner Than You Think.’  The Atlantic, July 2019. Online at https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/07/work-peak-professional-decline/590650/ 

Contexts (Fall 2009) ‘Facts and fictions about an aging America’ by the Macarthur Foundation Research Network on an Aging Society.  Online at https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1525/ctx.2009.8.4.16

Gopnik, Adam. ‘Can We Live Longer but Stay Younger?’ New Yorker, May 13, 2019.  Online at https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/05/20/can-we-live-longer-but-stay-younger

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

Gullette, Margaret Morganroth. “Blame ageism.”  Los Angeles Review of Books, June 8, 2016.  https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/blame-ageism/

Gullette, Margaret Morganroth. Ending Ageism, or How Not to Shoot Old People. Rutgers University Press, 2017. Online from Project MUSE: https://muse.jhu.edu/chapter/2000950

Gullette, Margaret Morganroth. “Against ‘Aging’– How to Talk about Growing Older.” Theory, Culture and Society 35 (2018): pp. 251-70: available at https://doi-org.offcampus.lib.washington.edu/10.1177/0263276418811034

Krystal, Arthur. ‘Why We Can’t Tell the Truth About Aging,’ The New Yorker. Nov 4, 2019 (pp. 74-77). Online at https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/11/04/why-we-cant-tell-the-truth-about-aging

Pinsker, Joe.  “When does someone become ‘old’?”  The Atlantic.  January 27, 2020.  Online at https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2020/01/old-people-older-elderly-middle-age/605590/

 

Other general bibliography:

*Alboher, Marci. (2013). The Encore Career Handbook : How to Make a Living and a Difference in the Second Half of Life. New York: Workman Pub.  Online at https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/washington/detail.action?docID=3418847. Copies are available from the UWRA office (Gerberding B 80).

Athill, Diana. (2008). Somewhere Toward the End: A Memoir. New York: W.W. Norton.

—————-. (2016). Alive, Alive Oh!: And Other Things That Matter. New York W.W. Norton.

*Baldwin, Roger G.; Brett H. Say; and Angie A. Belin. ‘Transforming Academic Retirement: The Performance and Potential of Retirement Organizations in Higher Education.’ (2017). Report from the Center for Higher and Adult Education (May 2017) from Michigan State University.  Online at http://chae.msu.edu/files/attachments/43/document/2017CHAEreport_Retirement.pdf

*Center for Retirement Research at Boston College.  Lots of useful resources online at https://crr.bc.edu/

Cicero, Marcus Tullius. (45-44 BCE). Cato Major de senectute (Cato the Elder on old age). Many older translations are available: e.g., W.A. Falconer’s translation in the Loeb Classical Library (1923). Online at Loeb Classical Library.
* (2016) A well regarded recent translation, by Philip Freeman, is How to Grow Old: Ancient Wisdom for the Second Half of Life. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Darling, Rosalyn Benjamin, & Peter J. Stein (Eds.). (2017). Journeys in Sociology: From First Encounters to Fulfilling Retirements.  American Sociological Association/Temple University Press.

Eisenberg, R. (2016). “Retirement Life: Women and Men Do It Very Differently.” Forbes, April 20, 2016. Online at https://www.forbes.com/sites/nextavenue/2016/04/20/retirement-life-women-and-men-do-it-very-differently/#10154e1c7d5d

*Farrell, Chris.  (2014). Unretirement: How Baby Boomers are Changing the Way We Think about Work, Community, and the Good Life. New York: Bloomsbury Press.

*Freedman, Marc. (2007). Encore: Finding Work That Matters In The Second Half Of Life. New York: Public Affairs. Copy available from the UWRA office (Gerberding B 80).

Gawande, Atul. (2014). Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End. New York: Picador.

Hillman, James. (1999). The Force of Character and the Lasting Life. New York: Random House. Copy available from the UWRA office (Gerberding B 80).

Jones, Kathleen W. (2016). ‘Finding the Path to Retirement.’ Chronicle of Higher Education 27 November 2016. Online from Lexis.com.

*Klaus, C. H. (2000). Taking Retirement: A Beginner’s Diary. Boston: Beacon Press.

Laslett, Peter. (1991). A Fresh Map of Life: The Emergence of the Third Age. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.  Copy available from the UWRA office (Gerberding B 80).

Lawrence-Lightfoot, Sara. (2009). The Third Chapter: Passion, Risk, and Adventure in the 25 Years after 50.  New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

*Moffitt, Phillip. (2012). Emotional Chaos to Clarity: How to Live more Skillfully, Make Better Decisions and Find Purpose in Life. New York, Penguin Group.

*Sedlar, Jeri, and Rick Miners. (2007). Don’t Retire, Rewire!: 5 Steps to Fulfilling Work that Fuels Your Passion, Suits Your Personality, and Fills Your Pocket. Indianapolis: Alpha Books.  Online at https://learning.oreilly.com/library/view/dont-retire-rewiretm/9781592576890/pr01.html. Copy available from the UWRA office (Gerberding B 80).

Shultz, Kenneth. (2015). Happy Retirement: The Psychology of Reinvention. New York: Penguin Random House. Online at https://learning.oreilly.com/library/view/happy-retirement-the/9781465452498/OEBPS/xhtml/cover.xhtml.

Spicker, Stuart F.; Kathleen M. Woodward; & David D. Van Tassel (Eds.). (1978). Aging and the Elderly: Humanistic Perspectives in Gerontology. Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press.

Strout, Elizabeth. (2019). Olive, Again. New York: Random House.

TIAA Institute. Useful resources online at https://www.tiaainstitute.org/.

‘Understanding The Faculty Retirement (Non) Decision.’ (2015).  TIAA Institute Report, June 2015.  Online at https://www.tiaainstitute.org/publication/understanding-faculty-retirement-non-decision.

*Van Ummersen, C.; J. McLaughlin; & L. Duranleau (Eds.). (2014). Faculty Retirement: Best Practices for Navigating the Transition. Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing. Copies are available from the UWRA office (Gerberding B 80).

Woodward, Kathleen. (2009). ‘Against Wisdom: Anger and Aging.’ Ch. 2 (pp. 58-78) in Woodward, Kathleen. Statistical Panic: Cultural Politics and Poetics of the Emotions. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.  Online at https://read.dukeupress.edu/books/book/1404/Statistical-PanicCultural-Politics-and-Poetics-of

_________________. (2012). ‘Assisted Living: Aging, Old Age, Memory, Aesthetics.’ Occasion: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Humanities 4 (June 14, 2012).  Online at https://arcade.stanford.edu/occasion/assisted-living-aging-old-age-memory-aesthetics.

_________________. (2019). ‘Aging in the Anthropocene: The View from and beyond Margaret Drabble’s The Dark Flood Rises.’ In Ageing in Literature, ed. Elizabeth Barry, an annual volume of Essays and Studies (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell and Brewer, forthcoming).

 

* = Not in UW Libraries; available from Summit/ILL, or Online