The BSG conference this year opened with a plenary from Neil Small. Our symposium on anti-ageing followed in the main lecture theatre to an audience of perhaps thirty people which included some of the leading lights in the BSG. In the field of anti-ageing there have been many discussions of the ethics of life extension and many speculations about the future of the life span. What this symposium provided was one of the first occasions where scholars studying the attitudes and motives of those engaged in anti-ageing activities of all kinds could come together and share and explore their data.

I opened the session with a short scene-setting introduction taken from my own paper. I outlined the nature of anti-ageing phenomena as systematic attempts to slow, arrest or reverse the biological processes of ageing. Scientists are making big claims about the possibility and future potential stemming from increased understanding of the basic biology of ageing.

But why is this issue important? There are small-scale individual choices to be made about diet, exercise, and lifestyle measures which will affect your longevity: how / should people be responsible consumers? And which choices will affect longevity? There are political and social issues about ageism and the appropriate place for older people in society: should we endeavour to avoid old age or celebrate it as a natural part of the life course? And should we treat it as a disease and try and cure it? Then there are existential issues about the meaning of life and death: what does it mean to greatly extend life and postpone death for ever longer periods – perhaps indefinitely?

I then gave the briefest of introduction to my own current work on the rhetorics used by anti-ageing practitioners to justify their activities and illustrating conflicts within anti-ageing movements as to the scientific status of different approaches, the appropriateness of the disease model, the priority for holistic or reductionist images of the body and the moral status of ageing.
We were extremely pleased that Bob Binstock, a long standing and well-respected figure in US (United States) social gerontology and his colleague Jennifer Fishman from Care Western Reserve University in the US were able to come and give us information on their current research on “Biogerontology as an Emergent Discipline”. Their paper was co-authored with Eric Juengst but presented as a ‘double act’. Bob provided the background on the early development of anti-ageing science as a discipline in the American scene. Jennifer presented the attitudes of the leading biologists they interviewed as to the nature and objectives of their research. The choices in how they frame their research have important professional, social, and political implications for their perceived legitimacy as scientists, funding for their research, and success in their careers. Their account was a very interesting example of the boundary making processes in which scientists engage, made familiar in the literature of the Sociology of Science. Boundaries between biology (as basic science) and medicine (as applied science) came across as important.

The second paper “Preventing brain ageing: anti-ageing medicine or what?” was given by John Bond (Newcastle University) while his co-author Tiago Moreira (Durham University) was giving another presentation simultaneously in Liverpool. The paper concerned translating the bioscientific knowledge about ageing processes into therapeutic strategies and products. In particular how knowledge and practice about Alzheimer’s Disease and 'new' preventive therapies are imagined, enter into development and are trialed. The emergence of these therapies has been concurrent with a search for instruments and 'biomarkers' to identify individuals 'at risk' of developing dementia for whom these therapies would be indicated. John illustrated how medical and commercial processes are partly framed and constructed by anti-ageing movements. This again linked to the theme of old age as disease and the struggle over constructing the meaning of scientific findings.

Mone Spindler, now at the University of Tuebingen, gave an account of an aspect of her current doctoral research into the European anti-ageing movement. Her paper entitled “Anti-ageing and Spirituality - Surrogate Religion, Spiritual Materialism, Post-Modern Calvinist Ethic?” described and analyzed the manifestations of spirituality in various forms in the European context of anti-ageing. She concentrated on three themes. The first debunking immortalists' radical biotechnological future plans as a surrogate religion and thereby as pseudo-science; the second argument highlighting links with eastern religiosity as spiritual materialism and thereby as pseudo-religion; and the third theme interpreting the rational self-controlling lifestyle characteristic for parts of the anti-ageing as a post-modern version of the Calvinist ethic. Her presentation was illuminated with arresting ethnographic examples of the themes she was discussing, culminating in the dramatic production of packages of ‘God Energy’ supplied by an exhibitor at an anti-ageing conference.

The final presentation came from a young scholar at Exeter University, Cassie Phoenix. Her paper “Anti-ageing Bodies?: Considering the Dark Underside of the Sport Sub-culture” was based on her successfully completed doctoral research that explored young athletes relationship to their ageing bodies. She explored embodied narratives of anti-ageing. She presented both “mirroring” and “disciplined” bodies and how these can become problematic in the context of ageing and richly illustrated this from her interviews. She concluded by suggesting that sport sub-culture helps sustain and potentially perpetuate anti-ageing narratives. The paper added important context to the symposium reminding us that ageing is not the sole prerogative of old people and illustrating the importance of the body to identity in our culture.

Given five presentations in 90 minutes, discussion was unfortunately but inevitably extremely short. Nevertheless important contrasts between the American on the one hand and the European anti-ageing movements in terms of the involvement of ‘new age’ and spiritual dimension to their activities were noted. The focus on and understanding of the body in contemporary culture including fitness, sport, mental abilities and enhancement, and replacement joints also came out.