Dedal-Lit

Grup Dedal-Lit is a research group of the University of Lleida, one of the public universities in Catalonia, north-eastern Spain. The main field of research of the group is Literary and Cultural Gerontology. In particular, members of the group study the ways in which literature and other artistic forms such as cinema, theatre, and the performance arts in general throw light on the diversity and intricacies of the aging process as experienced and represented today.

Grup Dedal-Lit was constituted in 1996, when it received institutional support from the University of Lleida. The research group’s subsequent experience in the field of Literary and Cultural Gerontology dates from the year 2000 when it won its first competitive project on aging studies, funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology and entitled “Perceptions of Ageing in Contemporary English Literature.” From that time onwards, the group has continued to conduct research into aging, ageism and related topics through the specific perspective offered by literature studies.

Since 2000, Grup Dedal-Lit has led three research projects funded by the I+D section of the Spanish government; has led a projecte funded by INDEST (UdL's Research Institute on Humanities and Social Sciences) and has participated in a project funded by the 7th Framework Programme of the European Union. Grup Dedal-Lit is a founding member of the European Network of Aging Studies (ENAS) and has participated in the project “Live to Be a Hundred”: Cultural Narratives of Longevity, funded by an agency of the Government of The Netherlands.

Through the group’s research projects, the members of Dedal-Lit have gained wide experience in the organization of conferences on Literary and Cultural Gerontology. In the year 2002, the research group organised and hosted the conference “The Art of Ageing: An International, Interdisciplinary Conference on Textualising the Phases of Life” (6-8 November); in the year 2008, the “6th International Symposium on Cultural Gerontology: Extending Time, Emerging Realities, Imagining Response” (16-18 October); and in 2013, the “ENAS Experts’ Meeting – ‘Live to Be a Hundred’: Cultural Narratives of Longevity” (8-9 April). In 2025, Dedal-Lit will host the official conference of the European Association in Aging Studies at the Universitat de Lleida.

The members of the Grup Dedal-Lit have disseminated the results of their research through conference papers, journal articles, lectures, seminars, and books. These are the main publications that have been edited and produced by the group in the Dedal-Lit series within Edicions i publicacions de la UdL:

1. The Aesthetics of Ageing: Critical Approaches to Literary Representations of the Ageing Process (Eds. Maria O'Neill, and Carmen Zamorano-Llena, 2002);

2. The Polemics of Ageing as Reflected in Literatures in English (Eds. Maria Vidal-Grau, and Núria Casado-Gual, 2004);

3. Women Ageing Through Literature and Experience (Ed. Brian J. Worsfold, 2005);

4. The Art of Ageing: Textualising the Phases of Life (Ed. Brian J. Worsfold, 2005);

5. Anthology of Cultural Ageing: Testimonies from Catalonia and England (Eds. Maricel Oró-Piqueras, and Marta Miquel-Baldellou, 2007);

6. Acculturating Age: Approaches to Cultural Gerontology (Ed. Brian J. Worsfold, 2011);

7. Literary Creativity and the Older Woman Writer (Eds. Núria Casado-Gual, Emma Domínguez-Rué, and Brian Worsfold, 2016);

8. Casado-Gual, Núria. Prime Time. (Sèrie Teatre de la UdL, 2017);

9. Casado-Gual, Núria. Prime Time. (Trans. Marta Miquel and Brian Worsfold, 2018);

10. Ideas, Products, Services... 'Social Innovation' for Eldery Persons. (Eds. Elena Urdaneta and Brian Worsfold, 2018).