Constructing Centenarianism in Neenah Ellis’ If I Live to be 100: Lessons from the Centenarians
Constructing Centenarianism in Neenah Ellis’ If I Live to be 100: Lessons from the Centenarians

Summary/Abstract: This paper investigates how centenarianism as a new age category in its connection to successful aging is established in the guidebook on aging and the interview collection titled If I Live to be 100: Lessons from the Centenarians by Neenah Ellis. While guidebooks sell the image of successful aging as individual achievement and thus reinforce a neoliberal understanding of successful aging, Ellis’ narratives renegotiate the concept. She collects stories of centenarians which define the success in aging through personal encounters, purpose, and meaning rather than an active body. Thereby, they question normative assumptions of old age as a binary of progress and decline (cf. Gullette). With a focus on the way a new age category of centenarianism is established through narrative and storytelling, the paper traces how Ellis’ narratives grapple with the construction of centenarianism at the intersection of the biological, social, and cultural, asking which factors determine how age is established as a multi-facetted construct.

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