renee L beard

College of the Holy Cross, Sociology and Anthropology, Faculty Member

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I am a medical sociologist who studies narratives of aging, illness and Alzheimer's with an eye to effecting meaningful social change that will reduce health disparities and increase compassionate societal solutions to the local and global problems we collectively face.
Phone: 508-793-3054
Address: 1 College Street
Box 092
Worcester, MA 01610 USA

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Papers by renee L beard

Alzheimer's Disease

Encyclopedia of Death and the Human Experience

Living with Alzheimer’s: Managing Memory Loss, Identity, and IllnessLiving with Alzheimer’s: Managing Memory Loss, Identity, and Illness, by BeardRenée L.New York: New York University Press, 2016. 323 pp. $30.00 paper. ISBN: 9781479889808

Contemporary Sociology: A Journal of Reviews, 2017

tics, or at least as an outsider, ready to conquer rather than to govern, to rule rather than to ... more tics, or at least as an outsider, ready to conquer rather than to govern, to rule rather than to represent the institutions that he despises’’ (pp. 22, 23). Wow. Who says that the social sciences cannot predict? Beyond successful prediction, there is something here about the underlying conditions for and forms taken by populism that is very insightful. While the first chapter (pp. 5–44) was the most powerful for me, the other two deepen the analysis. The second chapter, entitled ‘‘Inside a changing social space,’’ ranges over a number of issues. It starts with the growing inequality that again is a worldwide phenomenon and that threatens to turn voters into spectators. It speaks of routine government invocations of the TINA principle (There Is No Alternative); the replacement of substantive talk with spectacle; and the reduction of culture to burlesque. Chapter Three, ‘‘Interconnected Loners,’’ focuses on our collective responsibility going forward. Responsibility, Bauman and Mauro say, ‘‘was once a concept of modernity.’’ Yes, before postmodernism and its poststructuralist successor reduced us to subject positions or before all conscious thought was otherwise demoted to habitus. But, say Bauman and Mauro, ‘‘without a duty to select and decide, the citizen is truly a spectator, perfectly free, finally ‘innocent’, in that he is not bound to causes or accountable for consequences’’ (p. 83). There is in this chapter considerable meandering from this theme in rather jumbled commentary on ‘‘flows,’’ the internet, and loss of history; and the twoand-a-half page epilogue was a bit too highflown for me to make much sense of. Still I appreciated the main point here. Is this social science? Where is (are) the data? If data is (are) your thing, this book is not for you. If, however, you want a brief book with gripping language on important ideas to stimulate discussion in your classroom, then I recommend the book. I certainly am thinking of using it myself. Living with Alzheimer’s: Managing Memory Loss, Identity, and Illness, by Renée L. Beard. New York: New York University Press, 2016. 323 pp. $30.00 paper. ISBN: 9781479889808.

Shaken Identities, Reserve Masculine Capital, and the Lived Experiences of Aging Men with Breast Cancer

Innovation in Aging, Dec 1, 2021

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Listening to Alzheimer's

Advances in psychology, mental health, and behavioral studies (APMHBS) book series, Aug 31, 2015

After outlining major trends in the literature base, highlighting the shortcomings, and suggestin... more After outlining major trends in the literature base, highlighting the shortcomings, and suggesting future areas of study, this chapter calls for including more sociological analysis, namely attention to social location, in research on the individual's changing perspectives in Alzheimer's Disease (AD), or AD narratives. Rather than assuming that illness experiences can be universalized, variables such as race/ethnicity, marital status, class, gender, religiosity, and age as well as the roles of mass media and medicine, matter deeply in how AD is interpreted and experienced. This chapter proposes that psychosocial studies of the topic need to systematically explore at least five areas: 1) comprehensive illness narratives, including the potential positive aspects, 2) the role of sociodemographic variables, 3) the narrative transformations throughout the illness trajectory, 4) the bioethical implications of diagnosing individuals increasingly earlier, and 5) the impact of institutional forces like mass media and modern medicine on illness narratives.

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‘Taking It One Day at a Time’: Couples Navigating Early Alzheimer’s

Innovation in Aging, Nov 1, 2018

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Managing memory : clinical facts, biomedical negotiations, and Alzheimer's identities

UMI Dissertation Services eBooks, 2006

Living with Alzheimer's: Managing Memory Loss, Identity, and Illness

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高齢者世代の社会保障--アメリカにおける高齢者権利運動とその役割 (特集市民活動・NPOと社会政策)

社会政策研究, Mar 1, 2007

Listening to early Alzheimers disease: first-person experiences by race, class, gender, and diagnosis

Prologue: Lost in Translation