Papers by Núria Mina-Riera
Revista Canaria de Estudios Ingleses, 2021
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Societies, 2020
Negative stereotypes about old age abound in our present-day society, which often considers older... more Negative stereotypes about old age abound in our present-day society, which often considers older people as sexually incapable or even asexual. On the other hand, active ageing ideologies foster the practice of sex in later life as a sign of healthy and active ageing. The aim of this pilot case study was to examine the impact that poetry on sexuality, ageing and creativity had on older individuals. In total eight participants, aged 49-76, participated in a workshop offered by the University of Lleida (Spain). The initial hypothesis was that the participants, following the example set by the poems, would produce pieces of creative writing in which they voiced their own concerns and experiences about sexuality in later life from the distance that metaphor grants. While some of the participants' writings engaged with the poems that deal with sexuality in older age, none of the participants' creative pieces contained explicit instances of sexual experiences. The analysis of the participants' creative pieces suggests that: first, they regard intimacy in older age as essential; and second, their unwillingness to write about sexuality in older age is partly rooted in their upbringing during Franco's dictatorial regime, in which sexuality for non-reproductive aims was constructed as immoral.
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Societies, 2020
Negative stereotypes about old age abound in our present-day society, which often considers older... more Negative stereotypes about old age abound in our present-day society, which often considers older people as sexually incapable or even asexual. On the other hand, active ageing
ideologies foster the practice of sex in later life as a sign of healthy and active ageing. The aim of this pilot case study was to examine the impact that poetry on sexuality, ageing and creativity had on older individuals. In total eight participants, aged 49–76, participated in a workshop offered by
the University of Lleida (Spain). The initial hypothesis was that the participants, following the example set by the poems, would produce pieces of creative writing in which they voiced their own
concerns and experiences about sexuality in later life from the distance that metaphor grants. While some of the participants’ writings engaged with the poems that deal with sexuality in older age, none of the participants’ creative pieces contained explicit instances of sexual experiences. The analysis of the participants’ creative pieces suggests that: first, they regard intimacy in older age as essential; and second, their unwillingness to write about sexuality in older age is partly rooted in their upbringing during Franco’s dictatorial regime, in which sexuality for non-reproductive aims was constructed as immoral.
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The Gerontologist, 2020
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Ecozon@, 2018
Angela Carter (1940-1992) and Lorna Crozier (1948) are two examples of contemporary writers who d... more Angela Carter (1940-1992) and Lorna Crozier (1948) are two examples of contemporary writers who dedicate part of their work to problematizing historically established constructs that undermine the agency of both nature and women. Carter’s and Crozier’s agenda is, thus, in line with ecofeminist tenets, which are based on the interconnectedness of all living things on a non-hierarchical level. The intention of this article is to conduct a contrastive analysis of Crozier’s and Carter’s retelling of the account of Leda and the swan originally described in Ovid’s Metamorphoses (8 AD) and later in W.B. Yeats’s poem “Leda and the Swan” (1928). We contend that both Carter’s and Crozier’s versions of the myth challenge patriarchal domination by giving voice to and empowering Leda, the young female character in the myth. This empowerment is closely associated to Leda’s harmonization with the natural world, since, by going back to nature, the young Ledas in Carter’s and Crozier’s works come to terms with their adolescent bodies in order to become women stripped of restrictive cultural and social beliefs. Accordingly, the original meaning of the figure of the swan is also subverted to adopt connotations more in tune with the creation of a sense of community that challenge the powerful enclosed violence that Ovid and Yeats attributed to this animal by presenting it as Zeus in disguise.
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Re-discovering Age(ing). Narratives of Mentorship, 2019
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Books by Núria Mina-Riera
Literary Creativity and the Older Woman Writer, 2016
‘Snow’ has been one of Lorna Crozier’s (1948) most recurrent symbols from the very beginning of h... more ‘Snow’ has been one of Lorna Crozier’s (1948) most recurrent symbols from the very beginning of her writing career, to the extent that in her memoir, Small Beneath the Sky:A Prairie Memoir (2009), ‘snow’ is established as a ‘first cause’ (2009: 58), that is, one of the inspirational triggers for her writing career.2 In her work, ‘snow’ has always been mostly associated to silence, the blurring of shapes, forgiveness and softness, as in her
seminal poem “Childhood” (1985: 26), in which all the above mentioned symbols are intertwined. However, a change in the symbolism of snow can be observed in Small Mechanics (2011), which was launched when Crozier was in her early-sixties. This change consists in the discernible identification of ‘snow’ with ‘grief’ as a feeling associated to Crozier’s treatment of the ageing experience in her work. This thematic change in its association with reflections on ageing suggests the beginning of Lorna Crozier’s late style.
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Papers by Núria Mina-Riera
ideologies foster the practice of sex in later life as a sign of healthy and active ageing. The aim of this pilot case study was to examine the impact that poetry on sexuality, ageing and creativity had on older individuals. In total eight participants, aged 49–76, participated in a workshop offered by
the University of Lleida (Spain). The initial hypothesis was that the participants, following the example set by the poems, would produce pieces of creative writing in which they voiced their own
concerns and experiences about sexuality in later life from the distance that metaphor grants. While some of the participants’ writings engaged with the poems that deal with sexuality in older age, none of the participants’ creative pieces contained explicit instances of sexual experiences. The analysis of the participants’ creative pieces suggests that: first, they regard intimacy in older age as essential; and second, their unwillingness to write about sexuality in older age is partly rooted in their upbringing during Franco’s dictatorial regime, in which sexuality for non-reproductive aims was constructed as immoral.
Books by Núria Mina-Riera
seminal poem “Childhood” (1985: 26), in which all the above mentioned symbols are intertwined. However, a change in the symbolism of snow can be observed in Small Mechanics (2011), which was launched when Crozier was in her early-sixties. This change consists in the discernible identification of ‘snow’ with ‘grief’ as a feeling associated to Crozier’s treatment of the ageing experience in her work. This thematic change in its association with reflections on ageing suggests the beginning of Lorna Crozier’s late style.
ideologies foster the practice of sex in later life as a sign of healthy and active ageing. The aim of this pilot case study was to examine the impact that poetry on sexuality, ageing and creativity had on older individuals. In total eight participants, aged 49–76, participated in a workshop offered by
the University of Lleida (Spain). The initial hypothesis was that the participants, following the example set by the poems, would produce pieces of creative writing in which they voiced their own
concerns and experiences about sexuality in later life from the distance that metaphor grants. While some of the participants’ writings engaged with the poems that deal with sexuality in older age, none of the participants’ creative pieces contained explicit instances of sexual experiences. The analysis of the participants’ creative pieces suggests that: first, they regard intimacy in older age as essential; and second, their unwillingness to write about sexuality in older age is partly rooted in their upbringing during Franco’s dictatorial regime, in which sexuality for non-reproductive aims was constructed as immoral.
seminal poem “Childhood” (1985: 26), in which all the above mentioned symbols are intertwined. However, a change in the symbolism of snow can be observed in Small Mechanics (2011), which was launched when Crozier was in her early-sixties. This change consists in the discernible identification of ‘snow’ with ‘grief’ as a feeling associated to Crozier’s treatment of the ageing experience in her work. This thematic change in its association with reflections on ageing suggests the beginning of Lorna Crozier’s late style.