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This book outlines the methodology and results of the Fiction and the Cultural Mediation of Ageing Project, led by a research team from Brunel University, UK. It investigates how older people resist stereotypical cultural representations of ageing and demonstrates the importance of narrative understanding to social agency.

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PART I: CONTEXTS AND METHODOLOGIES 1. The Fiction and the Cultural Mediation of Ageing Project (FCMAP) 2. Everyday Life, Self-narrative and Identity PART II: MASS OBSERVATION AND AGEING 3. Mass Observation and the University of the Third Age 4. Understanding Third and Fourth Age Subjectivity from Mass Observation Responses 5. Responses to the Mass Observation Ageing Directives: Five Case Studies PART III: READERS, WRITERS AND AGEING 6. Representations of Ageing in Post-war British Fiction 7. The Reading Diaries: Four Case Studies 8. The Role of Narrative Representation and Exchange in How Older People Understand Ageing 9. The Specific Attitudes of Writers to Ageing

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Nick Hubble is Head of English at Brunel University, UK.

Philip Tew is Professor of English and Director of the Brunel Centre for Contemporary Writing at Brunel University, UK.

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