Simon(e) van Saarloos & Nika Looman: ‘Against Ageism: A Queer Manifesto’ [Book launch]

Author Simon(e) van Saarloos will be discussing their piercing critique of conventional arguments against ageism with researcher and academic Nika Looman. The evening will include readings from Against Ageism: A Queer Manifesto, and a group conversation on the ways in which queer and crip theory can be applied to reframe commonly held understandings about age.  

Saturday 8 February 
18:00 20:00 

Rokko 
Steendam 42
9000 Ghent, Belgium

About Against Ageism: A Queer Manifesto 

Against Ageism: A Queer Manifesto starts with what it is not: a socio-economic argument against ageism, celebrating the ‘elderly’ as economically viable. Instead, Simon(e) van Saarloos presents a radical critique of conventional arguments against ageism, rejecting constructs of ‘age’ and ‘youth’ and assumptions of their inherent qualities. 

Drawing from personal experience, the manifesto offers a reckoning with how ageism overlaps with structures of white supremacy and patriarchy. Through the lens of crip and queer theory, as well as anti-carceral and anti-colonial perspectives on time, this piercing text provocatively calls for the abolition of age-related laws, reframing commonly held understandings about age from van Saarloos’s defiant perspective. 

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