Joel Savishinsky to Talk On the Art of Retirement

Joel Savishinsky, the Charles A. Dana Professor in the Social Sciences, will present "Zen and the Art of Retirement: How People Face Change in Later Life" on Thursday, February 7. The talk, a part of the Ithaca College Gerontology Institute Distinguished Speaker Series, will begin at 7:30 p.m. in the Emerson Suites, Phillips Hall. The event is free and open to the public.

Savishinsky joined the faculty of the anthropology department in 1973. In addition to nearly three decades of teaching, he has embarked on an archaeological dig to Turkey, traveled by dogsled to study Native American people in the Canadian Arctic, and lived with farmers, fishermen, and goat herders in the Caribbean. In 1983, while doing research on the effects of pet therapy programs in nursing homes in upstate New York, he developed an interest in older people and has since focused much of his attention to aging issues.

Savishinsky’s most recent book, Breaking the Watch: The Meanings of Retirement in America, was awarded this year’s Richard Kalish Innovative Publication Award. Given annually by the Gerontological Society of America, the Kalish award recognizes insightful and innovative publications on aging and life course development in the behavioral and social sciences.

In 1992 Savishinsky won his first Kalish award for his book The Ends of Time: Life and Work in a Nursing Home. In the years that followed he has studied older people and their social support systems in such diverse places as southern India, England, and the United States. In Breaking the Watch Savishinsky and his student researchers explore retirement in America, a relatively new and uncharted territory that, because of increasing life expectancies, is becoming more and more common.

For more information contact Terry Beckley at the Gerontology Institute at 274-1967.