The project “Gendering Age: Representations of Masculinities and Ageing in Contemporary European Literatures and Cinemas – MASCAGE” analyzes social constructions of ageing masculinities and/through their cultural representations in post-1989 European literatures and cinemas. The specific objectives of the project are: the analysis and understanding of the interrelationship of masculinities, men’s behaviors and practices with a variety of social issues specifically associated with men’s ageing, the exploration of men and women’s gendered experiences of, and attitudes to, ageing across different European regions, gaining a deeper understanding of contemporary and changing representations of ageing masculinities in and through different media contexts. The interdisciplinary and diverse team based at the University of Graz and led by Prof. Dr Roberta Maierhofer reads a corpus of literature and film from Central and Southeastern Europe (German-, Slavic-, Hungarian-, and Romance-speaking) in seeking to pose questions about the social and artistic imaginary of male old age and its space, place, and role in contemporary societies from the region.
Roberta Maierhofer is Professor of American Studies and director of Center for Inter-American Studies at the University of Graz. She studied English and American Studies and German Studies at the University of Graz and Comparative Literature at the State University of New York at Binghamton, USA. From 1999 to 2011, she held a series of Vice-Rector positions for International Relations (1999-2003), International Relations and Affirmative Action for Women (2003-2007), and International Relations and Interdisciplinary Cooperation (2007-2011). In 2000, she initiated and established the focus area South-Eastern Europe at the University of Graz. In the 1990s, she developed a theoretical approach to age and aging (anocriticism) and published widely in the field of cultural gerontology and Age/Aging Studies. Since 2004, she has been directing the Graz International Summer School Seggau, which was established as an interdisciplinary and intercultural platform in the fields of European and Inter-American Studies. Since 2016, she has been editing the publication series “Off Campus: Seggau School of Thought” (Graz University Press). She has also been instrumental in developing research projects on a national and international level. The EU project "Gendering Age: Representations of Masculinities and Ageing in Contemporary European Literatures and Cinemas” (ERA Gender-Net Plus) and the project “Interpreneurship: Styria Meets the USA” (Government of Styria) are two recent examples.
Oana Ursulesku is a post-doctoral researcher at the Plurilingualism Research Unit and the Center for Inter-American Studies, both at the University of Graz. Her research interests include literatures in plurilingual and minority contexts in Southeastern Europe, aging studies, as well as contemporary American literature and culture. In the spring semester of 2018, as part of her doctoral research, she was visiting scholar at Long Island University in Brooklyn, New York. She has been involved in the organization and coordination of numerous extracurricular events, among which the Graz International Summer School Seggau and the conference AgingGraz2017. She is also co-editor of the Off Campus: Seggau School of Thought publication series. Oana is an active literary translator between Serbian, Romanian, and English and a published author of short fiction.