There are many emerging stories in the global Covid-19 crisis, stories of sickness, death, lockdown, isolation, unemployment, alongside stories of human resilience, solidarity and hope for sustainability, social inclusion and fairness.

However, from an early point, the discourse on older people was controversial and troubling. While the intent was to protect vulnerable cohorts from infection, this well-intended policy resulted in severely restricted freedom and mobility over an extended period of time, causing mental and other health issues.

Against this backdrop, this UCD Humanities Institute webinar asks what are the blind spots and biases that Covid-19 has revealed in public discourse, political rhetoric and narratives of experience?

Read more about the contributors:

• Ailbhe Smyth, LGBT/women’s rights advocate and academic. She was the head of Women's Studies in UCD from 1990 to 2006 and a spokeswoman and convener for the Coalition to Repeal the Eighth Amendment; a founding member of Marriage Equality, convenor of Feminist Open Forum, and the former Chair of the National LGBT Federation. She was co-Director of the Together for Yes campaign tor repeal the 8th Amendment.
• Thomas Scharf, Professor of Social Gerontology, Newcastle University and President the British Society of Gerontology. He addresses issues relating to social inclusion and exclusion in later life, often with a focus on the spaces and places in which inclusion and exclusion arise and on the policy responses to forms of exclusion.
• Ulla Kriebernegg, Associate Professor of American Studies at the University of Graz, head of the “Age and Care Research Group Graz”, and adjunct at the Medical University Graz, Austria.
• Paul Higgs, Professor of the Sociology of Ageing at UCL. He has published extensively in social gerontology, medical sociology and the Fourth Age
• Dana Walrath, writer, artist and anthropologist, USA. Her graphic memoir, Aliceheimer’s about life with her mother, Alice and dementia, was featured in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and on National Public Radio.
• Andrew King, is Professor of Sociology, University of Surrey where he is also Co-Director of the Centre for Research on Ageing and Gender and Co-Chair of the Sex, Gender and Sexualities Research Group at Surrey).
• Susan Pickard, Professor of Sociology, University of Liverpool. Her research and teaching interests are located within the fields of sociological approaches to ageing, gender, embodiment, health and illness.
• Rina Knoeff, Associate Professor of History, University of Groningen. She works on the history of body and health in the Enlightenment

Chairs: Prof Anne Fuchs (Humanities Institute UCD), Prof Des O’Neill (Royal College of Surgeons/TCD), Prof Mary Cosgrove (TCD), Dr Julia Langbein (TCD)