Thomas R. Cole (born March 15, 1949) is a writer, historian, filmmaker, and

gerontologist Gerontology ( ) is the study of the social, cultural, psychological, cognitive, and biological aspects of aging. The word was coined by Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov in 1903, from the Greek , ''geron'', "old man" and , ''-logia'', "study of". Th ...

. He is currently the McGovern Chair in Medical Humanities and Director of the McGovern Center for Humanities and Ethics at the

University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) is a public academic health science center in Houston, Texas, United States. It was created in 1972 by The University of Texas System Board of Regents. It is located in the T ...

. He is also a spiritual director at Congregation Beth Israel'
Center for Healing, Hope, and the Human Spirit.

Biography

Cole was born into a Jewish family in

New Haven New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134,02 ...

, Connecticut. His father, Burton David Michel, died in a car accident in September 1953, when Cole was 4 years old. His father's death prompted a lifelong personal and academic inquiry into issues of spirituality, aging, and the question of what it means to grow old. Cole married Letha Birkholtz in 1972 and had two children, Jacob and Emma. He was divorced and married Thelma Jean Goodrich in 2007. They live in

Houston Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 in ...

Education

Cole studied philosophy as an undergraduate at

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

. He graduated in 1971 under the mentorship of philosopher of religion Merold Westphal and political philosopher William McBride. He earned a master's degree in American intellectual history under the direction of Donald Meyer at

Wesleyan University Wesleyan University ( ) is a Private university, private liberal arts college, liberal arts university in Middletown, Connecticut. Founded in 1831 as a Men's colleges in the United States, men's college under the auspices of the Methodist Epis ...

(1975) and a Ph.D. in history under the mentorship of

Christopher Lasch Robert Christopher Lasch (June 1, 1932 – February 14, 1994) was an American historian, moralist and social critic who was a history professor at the University of Rochester. He sought to use history to demonstrate what he saw as the pervasiven ...

at the

University of Rochester The University of Rochester (U of R, UR, or U of Rochester) is a private research university in Rochester, New York. The university grants undergraduate and graduate degrees, including doctoral and professional degrees. The University of Roc ...

(1980). His dissertation examined the history of aging in middle-class America in mid-19th and early 20th centuries.

Academic career

In 1982 Cole became a professor at UTMB Galveston, where he assisted his mentor, Ronald Carson, in developing the nation's first Ph.D. Program in

medical humanities ''Medical Humanities'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal covering the field of medical humanities. The journal presents the international conversation around medicine and its engagement with the humanities and arts, social sciences, hea ...

. His 1993 book, ''The Journey of Life: A Cultural History of Aging in America]''examined the tradition of European thought and art about aging, traced its evolution in America, and emphasized the absence of social and cultural meaning in later life. In 1997 Cole wrote ''No Color is My Kind'', the story of Eldrewey Stearns and the integration of Houston. Cole and his student at the time, Kate de Medeiros, taught Life Story Writing Workshops to groups of elders in Galveston from 1998 to 2003. The

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...

film ''Life Stories'' was made about the workshops. In 2004 Cole became the founding director of the McGovern Center for Humanities and Ethics. With Ronald Carson and Nathan Carlin, he co-authored '' Medical Humanities: An Introduction.'' In 2018 Cole began training to become a Spiritual Director under Rabbi James Ponet. He was ordained in 2021 by Rabbi Ponet, Rabbi David Lyon, Rabbi Richard Address, Dr. Catherine Stephenson, Reverend Laura Mayo, and Dr. Thelma Jean Goodrich. In 2021, he founded Congregation Beth Israel's Center for Healing, Hope, and the Human Spirit with Rabbi David Lyon and began working as a Spiritual Director at Temple Beth Israel in Houston.

Published works

Books

*
No Color Is My Kind: The Life of Eldrewey Stearns and the Integration of Houston, Texas
'' 1997. 2nd edition, University of Texas Press, 2021. * ''The Journey of Life: A Cultural History of Aging.'' New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992. * ''The Brewsters.'' The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth), August 2011. * ''Medical Humanities: An Introduction.''

Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by Henry VIII of England, King Henry VIII in 1534, it is the oldest university press A university press is an academic publishing hou ...

, 2014. *
Old Man Country: My Search for Meaning Among the Elders
'' Oxford University Press, 2019.

Documentary films

* ''The Strange Demise of Jim Crow'' (1998) * ''Still Life: The Humanity of Anatomy'' (2001) * ''Life Stories: Aging and the Human Spirit'' (2001) * ''Stroke: Conversations and Explanations'' (2007).

Edited collections

What Does It Mean to Grow Old? Reflections from the Humanities
'' Durham, NC:

Duke University Press Duke University Press is an academic publisher and university press affiliated with Duke University. It was founded in 1921 by William T. Laprade as The Trinity College Press. (Duke University was initially called Trinity College). In 1926 Du ...

, 1986. ''Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?: An Annotated Bibliography of Aging and the Humanities.'' Washington, D.C.: Gerontological Society of America, 1988.
Handbook of the Humanities and Aging
'' Springer Publishing Co., 1992.
Voices and Visions of Aging: a Critical Gerontology
'' Springer Publishing Co., 1993.
The Oxford Book of Aging
''

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...

, 1994. ''Handbook of the Humanities and Aging.'' Springer Publishing Co., 1999. ''Practicing the Medical Humanities: Forms of Engagement.'' University Publishing Group, 2003. ''Faculty Health in Academic Medicine: Physicians, Scientists, and the Pressures of Success.'' Totowa, NJ: Humana Press, 2009. ''A Guide to Humanistic Studies in Aging.''

Johns Hopkins University Press The Johns Hopkins University Press (also referred to as JHU Press or JHUP) is the publishing division of Johns Hopkins University. It was founded in 1878 and is the oldest continuously running university press in the United States. The press publi ...

, 2009.
Critical Humanities and Ageing: Forging Interdisciplinary Dialogues
New York, NY: Routledge, 2022.

External links

* http://www.thomasrcole.com * http://reflections.yale.edu/article/test-time-art-aging/journey-life-interview-thomas-cole

Notes and references

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cole, Thomas R. Living people 1949 births 21st-century American historians 21st-century American male writers American medievalists Filmmakers from Texas American gerontologists American male non-fiction writers