Against Ageism: A Queer Manifesto by Simon(e) van Saarloos

Book launch and panel discussion: Confronting the ways in which notions of age and youth are used to perpetuate the patriarchy of white supremacy

Hyper Hypo and Self Publish Be Happy invite you to the launch of the book Against Ageism: A Queer Manifesto by Simon(e) van Saarloos. The author will be present to discuss his work with Andreas Angelidakis (artist, writer, curator, architect) and Vassilia Kaga (curator, performer).

The talk will be held in English.

Confronting the ways in which notions of age and youth are used to perpetuate the patriarchy of white supremacy, Simon(e) van Saarloos offers a bold and necessary critique of social structures.

Combining academic insight with personal reflection, the author offers a fresh, accessible approach to understanding and deconstructing ageism that will appeal to both scholars and readers seeking personal and collective empowerment.

A few words about the book

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.

A few words about the author

SIMON(E) VAN SAARLOOS is a writer and curator. They are the author of Take ‘Em Down: Scattered Monuments and Queer Forgetting (2021) and Playing Monogamy (2019), as well as several books in Dutch. They also write fiction and theatre. Van Saarloos works as an independent curator of public programming and artistic collaborations, such as the queer programming for the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam and ‘The Non-Monogamy Letters’ with Kim TallBear at ArtsEverywhere.ca.