Wrinkle Radio

Intergenerational can be little more than a buzzword slapped onto feel-good, one-and-done programming, but meaningful intergenerationality can change how we live and thrive.   In this episode of  Wrinkle Radio , host  Dr. Sally Chivers  goes  back to school  with  Dr. Elizabeth Russell , Associate Professor of Psychology at Trent University, who invites local older adults to join her undergraduate...

Menopause gets funny, furious, and deeply honest, sometimes all in the same sentence. Dr. Sally Chivers talks with poet and professor Susan Holbrook about Steamy: A Menopause Symptomology , her raucous feminist book organized not by chapters, but by symptoms. Hot flashes. Burning mouth syndrome. Bladder leaks. Brain fog. The things you Google at 3 a.m., but rarely speak out loud. The conversation...

What happens when care becomes too much? In this episode, Professor Janna Klostermann talks about her new book At the Limits of Care . She tells host Dr. Sally Chivers what she learned from women who’ve stepped back from care work. Find out what their exits reveal about the structures that shape our lives, especially as we grow old. We talk about why quitting care feels like failure, how seeing ca...

Cree social worker and scholar Deborah Young shows how the stories we tell about aging matter. She describes beading circles as sites for activism and community. By beading, her university students learn about authenticity and reciprocity, especially through storytelling. In conversation with host Dr. Sally Chivers, Deborah Young reflects on her extensive career working in university governance, c...

Algorithms don't have to be ageist, but they often are. They influence financial decisions, insurance, and healthcare systems. They can amplify misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation. Potentially helpful or harmful AI tools infiltrate our digital lives, whether we know it or not, and whether we like it or not. In this episode, Professor Kim Sawchuk talks to host Professor Sally Chivers...

What does it mean to age in a digital world? In this episode, Professor Kim Sawchuk challenges the assumption that older adults are hesitant users of digital technology. She tells host Professor Sally Chivers about the conundrums posed by continual changes to digital media and how older adults respond through a series of adaptations, negotiations, and work-arounds. We learn to ask better questions...

How did Botox go from terrifying neurotoxin to casual cosmetic treatment? What does that mean for how we think of signs of aging on our bodies? In this episode, host Professor Sally Chivers talks about her evolving personal relationship with Botox, which prompted her to learn more about its history. She explains how that history unfurls story after story of unintended side effects, good and bad. W...

Why should we get friendly with death? Dying is inevitably, if ironically, part of life. How can we better support each other, and ourselves, through grief? Death-friendly communities would combine the potential behind compassionate communities with the power of the age-friendly movement. Professor Julia Brassolotto tells host Sally Chivers about how building them could help fight ageism. We talk...

Sixty years ago, The Beatles played to screaming throngs on the Ed Sullivan show. Their youthful optimism offered a new blueprint for the future to Boomer kids crowded around their television sets. Since then, Professor Stephen Katz, sociologist and drummer, has gone from playing on a makeshift kit in his parents’ basement to rocking with fantasy bands in well-appointed rehearsal spaces. He talks...

Organic gardening, vegan diets, natural childbirth, the peace movement … OK, boomers, you’d never know it from meme-land, but we have a lot to thank you for. How has the first generation to grow up with rock music as their cultural heartbeat changed how we experience aging? Professor Stephen Katz talks to host Sally Chivers about being part of a generation known for youthful rebellion that now sym...

Joy is possible, even more likely, as we age. But can joy really be a cultivated in nursing home life and work? Why should we take care home joy seriously? In this episode, Professor Susan Braedley explains how the conditions of dignity are the conditions for joy. She offers practical tips on how to contribute to dignity and joy, two keys to improving long-term care. Join her and host Sally Chiver...

Nursing homes are fast becoming the haunted houses of our era. But Professor Susan Braedley sees the potential for nursing homes to be vital public services where people want to live, work, and even play. She talks to host Sally Chivers about how the conditions of work are the conditions of care. The seeds for a scary future have been planted, but it might not be too late for a more hopeful way fo...

Someone you love is diagnosed with dementia. Or you are. Do you know where to get good information? Do you know who to ask? Host Professor Sally Chivers sits down with Professor Nicole Dalmer to get some answers. Find out why Sally renewed her lapsed public library card, how to get informed about dementia care, and how the search for information can draw you into connection and community, especial...

When you think of tech for older adults, what comes to mind? What you just pictured says as much about the world you live in and attitudes towards aging as it does about how technology might create better lives for all of us living in an aging world. Professor Emeritus Barb Marshall talks with host Professor Sally Chivers about what technologies older people actually use, what they mean in everyda...

Would you rather have the sex you had when you were 18, or still enjoy sex at 80? How did Viagra change the meaning of aging? Learn about andropause, clitoral insufficiency syndrome, and other maladies made up to market pills and make people feel bad about growing older. Wrinkle Radio gets a little racy as Professor Emeritus Barb Marshall talks with host Professor Sally Chivers about age-related s...

What if we started from the knowledge that, no matter what, we will die? And that if we're lucky, we'll grow old first? How would that change how we live? How would that change our politics? Professor Albert Banerjee shares what he's learned from talking to people in hospice and living in a yogic Ashram in the Himalayas. You'll hear about the costs of a society that avoids death and how to make ch...

Where do you want to live as you grow older? That’s a question for you, whether you’re 9 or 99. In this episode, we put aging in place, with the help of literature and the imagination. Host Sally Chivers and guest Ulla Kriebernegg talk about nursing home escape stories, Canadian Literature, King Lear, and what they tell us about how space matters. Because, as Ulla explains, where you are when you...

What scares you about aging? We can’t fight the forces that make us fear aging until we take a closer look at what they are. In this episode, age panic and what we can start to do about it. Host Sally Chivers and guest Andrea Charise talk about long-term care, the silver tsunami, stories that divide generations, and how it's not necessarily your fault if you don't age well. Wrinkle Radio is suppor...

Lisa LaFlamme just might have gotten fired for it. Dana Capell resisted it, even during the pandemic. Andrea Charise shaved her head to do it boldly. I hoped it would bring some respect. What gray hair says about us and the aging world we live in. Host Sally Chivers and guests talk about the first time we discovered gray hair, what it means for a teacher to look young (or old), the New Woman, and...