Click on the image below for an instructor’s guide with discussion questions and a key indicating which chapters will fit best for courses on research methods, linguistic anthropology, aging studies, medical anthropology, and religious studies / the anthropology of religion.

Reviews of Embracing Age

"The question of why and how religious commitment seems to improve the body’s health is one of the deepest puzzles in social science. Embracing Age suggests that one answer lies in the way people of faith use language to describe their lives and worlds. This beautifully written book will change the way you think about aging."
--Tanya Marie Luhrmann, author of How God Becomes Real: Kindling the Presence of Invisible Others

"The modern world urges us to outrun age, numb pain, and ignore death, but perhaps the secret to longevity and contentedness lies within the walls of a convent, where nuns practice a timeless model of gracious living. Anna Corwin, with a novitiate’s curiosity and an anthropologist’s precision, investigates the source of nuns’ grace and sparkle—and presents it as something we can tap into, too."
--Dan Zak, author of Almighty: Courage, Resistance, and Existential Peril in the Nuclear Age

"Corwin’s lush ethnography of convent life unlocks how elderly nuns experience aging in ways that render them healthier and happier than those of us who have taken a secular path. Embracing Age brings readers into nuns’ daily spiritual (intercessory prayers) and peer support (pastoral visits to the infirm). Observations, in-depth interviews, and clinical health measures are brought together to illuminate nuns’ sense of the life-death transition."
--Elinor Ochs, co-editor of Fast-Forward Family: Home, Work, and Relationships in Middle-Class America

"In Embracing Age, Anna Corwin tells us of aging and death through the eyes and experiences of American Catholic nuns. It is revealing, enlightening, a balm for those contemplating what is too often thought of as the pain and indignity of old age. The remarkable part, though, is how much it tells of life itself, and the things that really matter."
--John Archibald, author of Shaking the Gates of Hell: A Search for Family and Truth in the Wake of the Civil Rights Revolution

"Embracing Age is a sensitive and illuminating study of the pro-aging alternative offered by Catholic nuns. Through their emphasis on the interdependence of life and the value they place on 'being' rather than 'doing,' the nuns demonstrate a culture of acceptance and grace that can inspire us all."
--Sarah L. Kaufman, author of The Art of Grace and Pulitzer Prize-winning critic for the Washington Post

"Embracing Age reveals the ways in which the culture of American convents embraces aging as a positive process, providing sustenance for mind, body, and spirit. Vividly written, this book brings the reader deep into nuns' everyday experiences of life. Astute and accessible, it will be valuable reading for anyone interested in alternative age-positive ways of living and being."
--Jeanne Shea, co-editor of Beyond Filial Piety: Rethinking Aging and Caregiving in Contemporary East Asian Societies