The Laboratory of Narrative Research (LNR) is a teaching and research unit that is part of the School of English at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. It has been designed to bring together scholars and researchers from across the humanities, the social sciences and other scientific fields who have a special interest in the workings and the politics of narrative production.
Lab Director: Dr Effie Yiannopoulou
Dr. Tonia Tsamouri
December 2020
“Ageing is shaped more by culture than biology, more by beliefs, customs, and traditions than by bodily changes”, writes Margaret Cruickshank. The well-known scholar focuses on how “ageing” becomes the process through which “ageism” appears. Medical science has progressed, ensuring that people will be able to live longer and better while enjoying the prospect of looking more youthful. Medical surgeries, anti-wrinkle creams, make-up and clothes actively encourage people, especially women, to desire to remain young forever since old people are assumed, at least in western cultures, to be ugly, frightening, depressing and boring. It is no accident that in literature and culture ageing tends to be marginalized. People over a certain age are denied the right to many things (i.e., to work, have a personal relationship or a social life), while at the same time they are treated, by the younger, as a social and financial burden.
This online seminar will examine the idea of “ageing” in our times, concentrating on theatre and social life. We will examine extracts from Edward Albee’s theatre plays, along with contemporary advertisements as well as photos and videos, placing special emphasis on how they narrate ageing. We might also consider how the Covid-19 pandemic has overturned scientific achievements and cultural expectations by bringing into focus the relation between age and people’s physical being, thus distinguishing people according to their biological age.
This is an online seminar held via Zoom platform.
When: Thursday 3/12/2020
What time: 10:00-12:30
Language: English
As there is a limited number of participants, students interested in attending the workshop should register (and receive the zoom meeting link).
Participants will receive a certificate of attendance.
Tonia Tsamouri (Short Bio)
Dr. Tonia Tsamouri holds a BA on Theatre Studies (Drama Department, School of Fine Arts, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki), an MA on Drama and Theatre Studies (Drama Department, Royal Holloway, University of London) and a PhD on Harold Pinter’s plays and screenplays in relation to the Theory of Phenomenology (School of English, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki). She is currently a post-doc Researcher on Edward Albee’s theatre in relation to ageism, feminism and contemporary American women playwrights (School of English, Department of American Literature & Culture, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki).
She teaches, Drama and Theatre at the Deree American College of Greece and, also, at the Athens Drama School-Giorgos Theodosiadis. She is a theatre critic (member of the Hellenic Association of Theatre and Performing Arts Critics), member of the “Harold Pinter Society” and the Hellenic Centre of Theatre Semiology (University of Athens), as well as of the Panhellenic Society of Theatrologists. She is the editor of the theatre magazine Theatrografies (Dodoni Editions). She has worked for more than 10 years on TV (as Reader and Project Manager, Fiction Department, ANT1TV).
Her interests focus on ageism, phenomenology, feminism, as well as American and English theatre.
She has an 8 -year- old daughter.
Aging in the 21st Century
