Lectures For Lifelong Learners!

Everyone of course wants love, but the pessimists among us fail to find it. A recent Wall Street Journal article, “The Secret to Finding Love After 60,” lays out at length the problems and challenges of late life relationships. The popular reality tv show, “The Bachelor” now has a spinoff called “The Golden Bachelor,” with its star a 70-something widower who is looking for a new love. All of the contenders are at least 65. Seniors are not just holding hands at the movies on dates; they also fall in love, find romance, look for companions, and—yes, hook up. Many seniors view love as a powerful element in a meaningful life, as even a brief glance at The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal will show us. Seniors are having more sex and sex partners, and many are quite open about it. We also see a phenomenon colloquially called “grey divorce.” What does all this signify about human self-identity in later life? We shall consider how the 20th-century philosophers such as Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and Bertrand Russell anticipated the late-life sexual revolution, as did psychoanalysts such as Freud and Jung.