Photo of Anne Basting

Anne Basting

  • Professor Emerita, English

Education

  • MA Theatre, UW-Madison
  • PhD Theatre, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities

Research Interests

Storytelling Narrative and Social Change Aging Studies Disability Studies Narrative Community Engagement

Related Activities

  • Founder, UWM's Student Artist in Residence Program - year-long, immersive community engagement projects
  • Founder, President of TimeSlips, a non-profit committed to bringing meaning and joy to late life.

Awards and Grants

  • MacArthur Fellowship
  • Ashoka Fellowship
  • UWM Kellner Entrepreneurship Fellow
  • Brookdale National Fellowship in Gerontology and Geriatrics
  • Rockefeller Fellowship
  • Grants include:
    • NEA ArtWorks
    • Bader Philanthropies
    • Greater Milwaukee Foundation
    • Elder Justice Fund
    • Retirement Research Foundation
    • Wisconsin Dept of Health and Human Services
    • Kentucky Office of Inspector General and the Cabinet for Health and Family Services

Biographical Sketch

Basting is a Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, and founder and President of TimeSlips. Basting's innovative work as an artist and scholar is committed to the power of storytelling for social change. Her work has been recognized by a MacArthur Fellowship, an Ashoka Fellowship, a Rockefeller Fellowship, and multiple major grants. She is author/editor of multiple articles and four books, including her latest, Creative Care (HarperOne); as well as The Penelope Project (U of Iowa), and Forget Memory (Johns Hopkins). TimeSlips fosters an alliance of artists and caregivers bringing meaning and joy to late-life through creativity and has over 900 certified facilitators in 48 states and 20 countries.

Selected Publications

Creative Care: A Revolutionary Approach to Dementia and Elder Care
The Penelope Project: An Arts-Based Odyssey to Change Elder Care
Forget Memory: Creating Better Lives for People with Dementia
The Stages of Age: Performing Age in Contemporary American Culture

UWM Land Acknowledgement: We acknowledge in Milwaukee that we are on traditional Potawatomi, Ho-Chunk and Menominee homeland along the southwest shores of Michigami, North America’s largest system of freshwater lakes, where the Milwaukee, Menominee and Kinnickinnic rivers meet and the people of Wisconsin’s sovereign Anishinaabe, Ho-Chunk, Menominee, Oneida and Mohican nations remain present.   |   To learn more, visit the Electa Quinney Institute website.