The exploration of what May Sarton calls the 'foreign country of old age' usually does not go far beyond the familiar: the focus of aging studies has thus far clearly rested upon North America and Western Europe. This multi-disciplinary essay collection critically examines conditions and representations of old age and aging in Eastern and Southeastern Europe from various perspectives of the humanities and social sciences. By shedding light on these culturally specific contexts, the contributions widen our understanding of the aging process in all its diversity and demonstrate that a shift in perspectives might in fact challenge a number of taken-for-granted positions and presumptions of aging studies.

Dagmar Gramshammer-Hohl is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Slavic Studies at the University of Graz, Austria. She studied Slavic and Romance Languages, Literatures and Cultures in Graz, Moscow and Rouen and holds two master's and a doctoral degree from the University of Graz. She specializes in literary and cultural studies with a focus on 20th-century Russian literature, gender and age/aging studies. In her PhD thesis (2002) she analyzed representations of women's aging in Russian literature. Her current research project focuses on narratives of homecoming in Russian and Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian literature of exile. Dagmar Gramshammer-Hohl was granted the Prof. Paul Petry Award in Aging Studies in 1998; she is an alumna of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and a member of the European Network in Aging Studies (ENAS). In 2011 she was granted the Excellence in Teaching Award of the University of Graz. Oana Hergenröther (PhD) is a researcher at the University of Graz, Austria. Her focus is on literary studies and on plurilingualism in contemporary cultures and societies.