Speaker
Description
Age studies scholarship has increasingly interrogated the intersection of care for older adults and neoliberal market ideologies. This presentation explores how popular culture, specifically the cozy mystery genre, negotiates the language and optics of care for older adults in terms of costs and accessibility. Taken as a whole, the stories with ageing detectives offer invigorating alternatives to the traditional decline narratives by featuring older detectives who stay autonomous, independent, and, more importantly, productive by solving cases. While such representations offer alternatives to ageist stereotypes, they also make the value of older protagonists depend on productivity and activity, while obscuring their potential care needs and the issue of access to care services from the reader.
In this presentation we will discuss Richard Osman’s debut novel The Thursday Murder Club (2020) (with a Netflix film adaptation released in August 2025), and explore the idealized depiction of later life care within a luxurious retirement village—the fictitious Coopers Chase. More specifically, we examine how genre—in this case the cozy mystery—determines and shapes the age discourse in the novel. The analysis reveals that while the generic parameters of the cozy guarantee a sugar-coated and comfortable reading experience, the novel also allows for a reflection on how social changes impact the community, particularly regarding later life care. Ultimately, we argue that the idealized depiction of the protagonists’ later life care facilities exposes a key reality of care under the neoliberal ethos: enjoying quality of life and care in older age becomes a luxury, taken for granted only by those with the means to pay for it.
| Principal domain of study | English literary studies |
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