Kirsten Ellison

I am a third year PhD student at the University of Calgary’s graduate program in Communication and Cultural studies. I graduated with an MA in Communication and Cultural Studies from York University in 2011, and an Hons. BA in Sociology from the University of Toronto in 2008. Throughout my academic career, I have had a persistent interest in how we understand and make sense of what it means to grow old. My investigations into this topic have shifted over the years, but largely I have focused on how these conceptualizations of age and the aging body have changed and continue to change specifically within the context of new developments in anti-aging technology. Building upon my master’s research where I looked at the discursive construction of agelessness in anti-aging skin care advertisements, my doctoral research centers more broadly on the discursive construction of ageless subjectivities in consumer, medical, and popular science texts surrounding the promotion and development of new techniques of age intervention. In recent years, I have also worked as a research assistant for Dr. Charlene Elliott, Canada Research Chair in Food Marketing, Policy and Children’s Health at the Calgary Institute for the Humanities and for Dr. Isabel Pedersen, Canada Research Chair in Digital Life, Media and Culture at the University of Ontario’s Institute for Technology’s Decimal Lab.