Arnold Becker, Marc Laureys, Karl August Neuhausen, Georg Rudinger (Ed.)
Theodosius Schoepffers ›Gerontologia seu Tractatus de jure senum‹
Kulturwissenschaftliche Studien zu einem vergessenen Traktat über das Altenrecht
1. Edition 2011
318 pages
ISBN 978-3-89971-705-1
Bonn University Press at V&R unipress
Super alta perennis. Studien zur Wirkung der Klassischen Antike -
plus S&H
Book
In the light of the dramatic demographic change in almost all European societies, research on age(ing) has quite rightly become a key focus of current academic and political debate. An historical perspective, drawing on similar experiences in ageing societies, particularly at the turn of the 18th century, proves to be very enlightening. The starting point and main focus of the cultural studies in this volume, which are the result of an interdisciplinary research project based in Bonn, is a Latin text, published in 1705, by the Quedlinburg jurist, Theodosius Schoepffer (Gerontologie oder Abhandlung über das Recht der alten Menschen/ "Gerontology or a Treatise on the Rights of the Aged”). With this title Schoepffer not only anticipated the term given to the academic discipline; on the basis of literary tradition he also created his own, multifaceted conception of age, the analysis of which has the potential to enrich current discourse.
