The Old Man

Exploring the long-overlooked lives of elderly men who live alone, this anthology weaves together insights from psychology, philosophy, theology, and anthropology. It examines aging through cultural, personal, and social lenses—addressing topics from sexuality and digitization to the realities of solitude.

Old men – especially those who live alone – remain an understudied group in the gerontological literature, despite their significance to the demographic development. Among the elderly, the proportion of old men living alone is rapidly rising. This book is an anthology of different perspectives on The Old Man. It contains a personal account of becoming an old man, treats ideas about the old man throughout Western cultural history, and presents the first studies on the very old man. It also discusses a wide variety of topics – including alcohol as a prism for male aging; the old man and sexuality, digitization, and masculinities; and the single old man as lonely or just living alone – paying much-needed attention to this long overlooked group. The contributing researchers come from disciplines as different as psychology, philosophy, theology, anthropology, health, and gender studies.