Emma Domi nguez Rue Libros

The booming increase of the senior population has become a social phenomenon and a challenge to our societies, and technological advances have undoubtedly contributed to improve the lives of elderly citizens in numerous aspects. In current debates on technology, however, the »human factor« is often largely ignored. The ageing individual is rather seen as a malfunctioning machine whose deficiencies must be diagnosed or as a set of limitations to be overcome by means of technological devices. This volume aims at focusing on the perspective of human beings deriving from the development and use of technology: this change of perspective - taking the human being and not technology first - may help us to become more sensitive to the ambivalences involved in the interaction between humans and technology, as well as to adapt technologies to the people that created the need for its existence, thus contributing to improve the quality of life of senior citizens.

This book examines images of female illness and invalidism as a metaphor for women's invisibility in Victorian and fin-de-siècle America, particularly in the works of Ellen Glasgow. The author explores the Victorian cult of invalidism to reveal the mechanisms of patriarchy, warning against adherence to its values. Women are shaped into epitomes of delicacy and selflessness, ultimately reduced to a state of virtual nonexistence. Glasgow suggests that the doctrine of female self-effacement physically incapacitates women, undermining their autonomy as individuals. The female invalids in her fiction serve as uncanny mirrors, reflecting the self women become when they conform to traditional femininity and its principle of self-sacrifice. Biographical Note: Emma Domínguez-Ruiz graduated in English at the University of Lleida (Catalunya, Spain) and obtained an MA in English Literature at Swansea University (UK). She specialized in female invalidism in Glasgow's fiction and completed her PhD dissertation at the University of Lleida in 2005. In addition to American Studies, she has researched Victorian and Gothic fiction from a feminist perspective. Currently, she teaches in the Department of English at the University of Lleida and is a member of ENAS, a European research network focused on perspectives of aging in literature and culture.