Social Memory and Nostalgia

In March 2017, Netflix released a twelve-episode Japanese show titled Samurai Gourmet, about 60-year-old Takeshi Kasumi who has trouble adapting to his recent retirement. In the show, Kasumi attempts to navigate his retirement by eating in different establishments, often encountering social and age- or class-related cultural roadblocks. These roadblocks frustrate him, and he often longs for the freedom of an ancient Japanese samurai. To overcome these roadblocks, he imagines what the samurai would do in these situations as a learning process in how to act and respond.

This paper will explore how the past is used as contrast of the present, to critically engage with memory and the longing for the past in the present. This is done visually, with Kasumi imagining the samurai in real life, blending the space between past and present in his mind, setting images of the contemporary restaurants against a backdrop of characters in period clothing.

The visual blending of past and present in Kasumi’s mind challenges the role nostalgia has on us, as well as how we engage with the past as a form of understanding our present. I will use two episodes (3: “Mackerel in the Morning” and 12: “A Memory of Hashed Beef and Rice”) as examples for how Kasumi’s blending of the past and present strengthens the ties between geographical and temporal nostalgia of two different pasts: his, and the (imagined past of the) samurai. The episodes also situate Kasumi’s nostalgia against discovering meaning in life as a retiree.

This book examines the post-1960s era of popular music in the Anglo-Black Atlantic through the prism of historical theory and methods. By using a series of case studies, this book mobilizes historical theory and methods to underline different expressions of alternative music functioning within a mainstream musical industry. Each chapter highlights a particular theory or method while simultaneously weaving it through a genre of music expressing a notion of alternativity―an explicit positioning of one’s expression outside and counter to the mainstream. Historical Theory and Methods through Popular Music seeks to fill a gap in current scholarship by offering a collection written specifically for the pedagogical and theoretical needs of those interested in the topic.

“This study of ‘insurgent’ modes of popular music in the last third of the 20th century accomplishes quite a feat.  It yokes together a wide swath of sub-genres and styles--including reggae, punk, hip hop, alternative rock and country—through the lens of what the authors are calling “historical theory,” in order to chart a different, more comprehensive pathway through the annals of pop music history.  Shonk and McClure achieve an enviable balance of accessibility and scholarly depth, making this volume ideal for introductory college courses as well as more experienced researchers seeking a quick guide to specialized topics.”

--Pamela Fox, author of Natural Acts: Gender, Race, and Rusticity in Country Music; co-author of Old Roots, New Routes: The Cultural Politics of Alt.Country Music

Ностальгия-явление, отражающее отношения между эмоциями, памятью и историей. В статье исследуются причины ностальгии, факторы, влияющие на нее: время, обстоятельства, условия и место миграции, личные составляющие. Отмечается, что ностальгия-личное чувство, всегда связанное с хорошими воспоминаниями. Она не только имеет эмоциональное влияние на человека, но и приводит к определенным практическим результатам. Они рассматриваются в статье на примере русской эмиграции первой волны. С одной стороны, ностальгия-эмоциональное состояние, тоска по родине и прошлому, с другой-действие, направленное на сохранение памяти о них. К л ю ч е в ы е с л о в а : эмиграция; память; эмоции; тоска; ностальгия; Родина; адаптации; идентичность Nostalgia is a phenomenon that perfectly reflects the relationships among emotion, memory, and history. The article examines the causes of nostalgia, factors affecting it, such as: time, circumstances, conditions and place of migration, personal components. It is noted that nostalgia is a personal feeling, always associated with good memories. It has not only an emotional impact on a person, but also leads to certain practical results. They are discussed in the article on the example of the Russian post-revolutionary emigration. On one hand, nostalgia is a sorrow, an emotional distress, homesickness, a certain kind of reflection. On the other hand, it is an action aimed at keeping and preserving the memory of one's homeland, desire, and endeavors to return home.

In the early 1950s two novels, set in the early years of the 20th century, Only yesterday (Nog pas gisteren) and The ten thousand things (De tienduizend dingen), appeared from a new writer, Maria Dermoût. In this essay I argue that both of these works helped to shape a collective memory of the recent colonial past and that with the loss of place, the Indisch community was threatened by a potential loss of identity, but that literature was able to provide the memory of a sense of place, and collective memory could be retained. I argue that this memory, as represented in Dermoût's novels, took on a nostalgic form, helping to shape a collective identity based
partially on a melancholy sense of common loss. But dwelling on nostalgic loss did nothing to help explain the loss of the colony, and thereby inadvertently contributed to a general unremembering, or refusal toremember, the painful final years of decolonization.

In the past few decades, we have witnessed the emergence of the research fields of both trauma and nostalgia. This volume seeks to explore implications of bringing the two together. Granting these scholarly developments in attending to the disrupting power of traumatic experiences, a profound reflection on the meaning of nostalgic longings for collective and individual identity, construction of the past, religion and everyday life is called for. In order to understand the processes through which trauma and nostalgia are constructed, and how they shape individual as well as collective identity, it is necessary to focus on the everyday experiences, interests, and needs of the different actors involved in this process. An interdisciplinary comparison of trauma and nostalgia allows for a wider interpretation of meaning and also provides an opportunity for better understanding of the integration of trauma in nostalgic sentiments and its impact on the construction of identities, intergenerational transmission of the past, practices of memorialization and commemoration, reconciliation, grief, justice, hope, forgiveness, cultural politics of memory construction and spirituality. In this volume we will look specifically at the integration of trauma into nostalgic memories with keen attention of their interplay in public spaces, patriotic symbolism and rituals, popular culture, cinematography, monuments, museums, commemoration sites and memorials. Media and other technologies of mass-culture have been called on to play a new and important role in circulating images and narratives about the traumatic and nostalgic past. In these processes, the linguistic/discursive and the physical/spatial/aesthetic dimensions of cultural, political, and religious narratives are inextricably intertwined. How can people remember profound traumatic experiences with nostalgia? How nostalgia and trauma make both individual and collective memories fallible and subjective? How nostalgic sentiments romanticized traumatic pasts? How traumatic and nostalgic everyday memories function as coping mechanisms in remembering the past? And how these affects, shape and integrate into individual and cultural memory/identity?

During his lifetime, and in the course of the twentieth century, Edward Elgar and his music became sites for a remarkable variety of nostalgic impulses. These are manifested in his personal life, in the content of his works, in his critical and biographical reception, and in numerous artistic ventures based on his character and music. Today Elgar enjoys renewed popularity in Britain, and nostalgia of various forms continues to shape our responses to his music. From one viewpoint, Elgarian nostalgia might be dismissed as escapist, regressive and reactionary, and the revival in Elgar's fortunes regarded as the symptom of a pernicious 'heritage industry' in post-colonial, post-industrial Britain. While there is undeniably a grain of truth to that view, Matthew Riley's careful treatment of the topic reveals a more complex picture of nostalgia, and sheds light on Elgar and his cultural significance in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Obuhvatajući različite žanrove, stilove i decenije, autorka analizira vezu između filma i politike. Iz te veze, nastali su jugoslovenski crni talas, fantastika sa podtekstom društvene kritike, crne komedije i postjugoslovenski filmovi koji tematizuju svakodnevicu prožetu posledicama procesa " tranzicije " i " demokratizacije ". Kako bi otkrili ambivalentnu sliku socijalističkog društva koje ostaje u začaranom krugu birokratije, jugoslovenski filmovi se obraćaju složenim i po mnogo čemu jedinstvenim jezikom. Oni preispituju političku stranu stvarnosti da bi otkrili nimalo pohvalne slike margine i posledice raznolikih aspekata autoritarnosti. Za razliku od jugoslovenskog, srpski film najpre crpi inspiraciju iz balkanističkih stereotipa da bi krajem devedesetih godina 20. veka i početkom trećeg milenijuma, otvorio dijalog sa Evropom. Tema ovog dijaloga je jedna od glavnih preokupacija postkolonijalnog sveta, u traženju odgovora na pitanja kao što su: " ko sam " ; " gde je moje mesto u ekonomskoj i političkoj stvarnosti ". Poput trećeg filma, srpski filmovi pokreću pitanje identiteta ostajući smešteni u iz-među prostoru dileme koju nameće binarna podela na Istok i Zapad.

What if oil is magic?

Sure, we are used to think of oil as a curse disguised as a blessing: as oil is extracted and refined, it turns into black gold for the few and misery for the many. Oil reeks of pollution and corrupt autocrats, it smothers democratic forces. Oil makes a nation addicted to non-renewable resources and dependent on a global market out of its control. Oil spoils nature, society and politics.

And yet the forgotten story of a city in Iran reminds us that oil can also be the stuff of imagination, bringing life to a place, making people dream and remember.

This is the story of a city that was brought into being by oil, almost killed by oil, and yet still understands itself through oil.

http://ajammc.com/2015/02/16/abadan-oil-city-dreams/

This special issue addresses the possible connections and mutual benefits of examining together two analytic concepts – memory and periphery. These concepts receive much attention in various scholarly discussions, yet they have done so rather independently from each other. The potential applications and utilities of combining memory and periphery and the epistemic insights they provide for various disciplins are presented in the different contributions to this issue.

In the age of social media the nature of records and social memory is fundamentally changed. The archive is a tool used in the process of transforming social experience, memories and history into collective remembering. The increased prevalence of cultural archives and collections generated on social media present challenges to traditional concepts of what constitutes an archival record and disrupt standard archival protocols and procedures set by international guidelines. Contending that archival appraisal frameworks and protocols codify what is kept and what is left out of the archives and thus societal memory, this thesis will be a diagnostic exploration looking at the opportunities and challenges these types of archival collections present to contemporary professional practice. Exploring specifically the Instagram based community archive veteranas_and_rucas, it will argue for an expanded professional approach to appraisal and preservation to integrate the affective, epistemological, ontological and social valences of such an archival project. Borrowing from arts and archaeological conservation practices it draws upon real life examples to speculatively reconcile these challenges and provide examples to attend to the preservation requirements demanded by these projects.

This book provides a profound insight into post-war Mostar, and the memories of three generations of this Bosnian-Herzegovinian city. Drawing on several years of ethnographic fieldwork, it offers a vivid account of how personal and collective memories are utterly intertwined, and how memories across the generations are reimagined and ‘rewritten’ following great socio-political change. Focusing on both Bosniak-dominated East Mostar and Croat-dominated West Mostar, it demonstrates that, even in this ethno-nationally divided city with its two divergent national historiographies, generation-specific experiences are crucial in how people ascribe meaning to past events. This detailed and engaging work will appeal to students and scholars of anthropology, sociology, political science, history and oral history, particularly those with an interest in memory, post-socialist Europe and conflict studies.

Nostalji kavramının tarihteki ilk kullanımı Johannes Hofer adlı bir doktorun 1688 tarihli tıp tezinde görülür. Nostalji ilk ortaya çıktığında bir hastalığı tanımlamak için kullanılan Latince tınısına rağmen İsviçre Almancası bir kelime olan Heimweh’in Neo-Latince yani nostaljik anlamda yunanca tercümesidir ve “sıla hasreti” anlamına gelir. Evinden uzak askerlerin sıla hasretiyle yatağa düştüğü durumları tanımlayan bu hastalığın tedavisi bellidir: eve dönmek. Ancak hastalığın keşfini takip eden yüz yıl içinde kavram uzamsal anlamının dışına çıkarak zamansal bir anlam kazanır. Artık hasta askerleri eve geri göndermek onları tedavi etmez çünkü özlenen ev artık uzamsal bir yer değildir, zamansaldır. Bugün küresel olarak yayılan nostalji salgını bilinen ve geçmişte kalmış bir eve duyulan özlemin ötesinde daha önce içinde bulunulmamış, deneyimlenmemiş bir geçmişe duyulan özlemi ifade eder. Bazı araştırmacılar bunun nedenini Küreselleşme sonrası dönemde insanların ütopyalara yani daha iyi geleceklere inanmayı bırakmış olmalarına bağlar. Böylece bugünden memnun olmayan kişiler veya topluluklar daha iyi bir gelecek değil, iyileştirilmiş bir geçmiş tahayyül ederler ve belirsizlik, güvensizlik, düzensizlik ve kaosu temsil eden bugüne karşı düzenli, bilinen, tüm sorunlarından arındırılmış bir geçmiş inşasına başvururlar. Küreselleşme ve küreselleşme sonrası dönemde doğan bireyler ise bunu dolaylı ve kolektif deneyime bağlı olan nostaljiye başvurarak yani canlandırılmış nostaljiyle yapar. Canlandırılmış nostalji kişinin bireysel olarak doğrudan deneyimlemediği ancak toplumsal olarak paylaşılan bir geçmiş ideası üzerine duyulan özlemi ifade eder.
Nostalji salgınının görünürlük kazandığı alanlardan birisi de müziktir. Herkesçe malum olan plak uyanışında ve özellikle analog ve dijital karşıtlığı üzerinden yapılan tartışmalarda örtük olarak geçmiş ve bugünün karşılaştırıldığı görülür. Plak nesnesi üzerine müziksel veriyi kaydedebildiği kadar aldığı hasarlar ile kendi kişisel tarihini de kaydetmektedir. Bu bağlamda plağın çoğu zaman bir belleğe sahip olduğu iddia edilir. Plak kafeler ise çok daha yeni ortaya çıkan ve canlandırılmış nostalji yaratmak için eşyaları ve özellikle plakları mekânın hemen her köşesinde kullanan yerlerdir. Böylece bugün yaşadığı dünyadan ve hayattan memnun olmayan kişiler geçmişe dönük inşaları bu geçmişi hatırlatan nesneler yardımıyla yaparlar. Başka bir deyişle daha iyi/idealize edilmiş bir geçmişi tahayyül ederler. Bu tahayyülde geçmişin “kadim” müzikleri, bugünün henüz ortaya çıkmış ve meşruiyetini henüz kazanamamış müziklere karşı güçlü bir karşıtlık yaratır. Plak medyumu ise analog bir medya olarak “doğal” ve onun karşıtı olarak görülen dijital ise “yapay” gibi sınıflandırılmalara tâbi tutularak bugünü temsil etmesi bağlamında “istenmeyen, kötü” ilan edilir.
Bu tez çalışması küresel nostalji salgını olarak adlandırılan fenomeni geçmişi fragmanlar halinde kullandığı eşyaların hatırlatıcı özelliğiyle mekânsallaştıran “70’ler Plak Kafe” örneği üzerinden anlamaya çalışacaktır.

I argue that the philosophy of Jean-Francois Lyotard and the film "Brazil" are mutually enriching and illuminating when read in conjunction, particularly around issues of technocapitalism, private selfhood, nostalgia, and the concept of The Human

Este ensayo continúa con una línea de investigación iniciada en un trabajo anterior (Barrera 2016) donde se exploraba las posibilidades analíticas de la nostalgia en el contexto de un estudio etnográfico más amplio sobre la Corte Suprema de Justicia de la Nación (CSJN). En esta oportunidad el foco está puesto en las narrativas nostálgicas de funcionarios de esta institución que en los encuentros con esta investigadora tendían a dar cuenta de sus quehaceres cotidianos a partir de experiencias pasadas que ya no tenían lugar en el presente y que por ello eran añoradas. Las ausencias narradas, sin embargo, no dejaban traslucir sentimientos de resignación y fracaso de los actores, sino que se vinculaban por momentos con sus propias representaciones acerca del lugar que el derecho y la institución judicial ocupan en la sociedad.  Si bien el discurso nostálgico y su evocación de un ethos del tribunal que ya no existe puede interpretarse como una reacción de los actores judiciales frente a cambios de época que atraviesa la CSJN y el poder judicial en general, también dejan traslucir la fuerte tensión entre el derecho y la política?o bien entre la justicia y la política?presente en el campo jurídico local.

The article theorizes nostalgia as a cultural—and philosophical—category by focusing on its transformation through consumer society and its mythology.  It builds on, but also goes beyond, existing critiques of the commodification of the past and of “postmodern nostalgia.”  The distinctions between nostalgia and “the melancholy of history” (Fritzsche), on the one hand, and other historical types of nostalgia, on the other, are illustrated with examples from film, literature, and philosophy.  The remaining part of the article focuses on the production and commercialization of nostalgia, as it relates to cultural and personal memory, material culture, and everyday life.

In the general opinion, the times of communism are considered as dark pages of Polish history. Researchers, publicists, or journalists refer to it mostly as the times of communist dictatorship, regime or political dependence. The history of the Polish People's Republic is narrated in black and white colours and sometimes interposed with public debates that arise because of federal lawsuits or funerals of people connected to communists authorities.  The year 1989, which brought the transition to democracy, also started the process of social polarisation. It was a time when new kinds of social problems occurred and developed due to support of "wild" capitalism. Many economic and social reforms that are typical for so-called young democracies had its consequences in social pauperisation. In this context, I wish to analyse the cultural sector in Poland. What is the situation of people involved in creative industries? What kind of model of cultural participation is offered nowadays? Do activities of state institution have positive results? In my opinion, the situation is far from being perfect. The dominant trend in cultural policy, which involves tools of a market economy, had a significant impact on cultural institutions forced to concentrate on profits and commercial activities. Singular events and festivals become the best way to achieve it. Institutions that would be able to pursue long-term strategies usually remained underfunded. The statistics (report on cultural participation from 2014) are dissatisfying, especially if compared to the beginning of the 90-ties. To overcome this situation, most of state cultural institution organise varied educational programs. The primary purpose of those programs is to involve local communities in cultural life and to change the general opinion about culture as accessible only for elitist groups. This belief may be considered as emerging from communist nostalgia- the Polish People's Republic authorities formulated similar ideas. However, emphasising the existence of any such correlations is highly unpopular and remains beyond dispute.
Interestingly, there are other forms of "coming back" to historical times. Instead of unpopular meetings honouring socialists' authorities, there are new kinds of practices that shape culture and past politics.  Festivities or historical re-enactments do not differ much from the previous models of cultural participation. Warsaw Museum of Polish People's Republic's popularity is increasing, and socialist vintage becomes an inspirational element of contemporary design.

Besides its musical innovations, the Beatles' " Revolver " displays many points of sociological and cultural interest, including peculiar forms of self-education such as Abraham Moles' " mosaic culture ". Being the foundation stone of so-called 'pop culture' in 1966, the album marks the beginning of modernity in popular music, but it also discloses many features of post-modernism. Through "Revolver " , actually, the discourse of modernity reveals all its intrinsic contradictions. Today, when its aural and intercultural features have been fully absorbed by contemporary pop music in a fifty years time, listening to it is an experience far different from its 'innocent' auditory intimacy in 1966. Such a difference would demand an investigation of the role of nostalgia in our perception of the past.

This article takes a sociological perspective on the phenomenon of national myth making in collective memory. It develops an original theoretical concept, the ghost hero. The ghost hero, we posit, is a reinvented historical actor who, despite being implicated in acts of moral or legal turpitude, is elevated and venerated within national communities. In building a theoretical frame, we use two historical cases: Latvian aviator and Nazi-era collaborator Herberts Cukurs, and Marshall Ion Antonescu, pro-fascist leader of Romania in World War II. Our concept draws on the microsociological theory of Erving Goffman to characterize a historical narrative as the presentation of a national "self" and the structural functionalist perspective to examine the sociological functions of the ghost hero for state and society. We suggest that the ghost hero concept could extend beyond these cases and regions to analyze the heroization of historical figures implicated in atrocities.

The burgeoning genre of archival art practice in post-apartheid South Africa has catalysed the evocation of nostalgia in abundance. The archive has been at the centre of numerous exhibitions in contemporary art. This paper explores the meaning of an emerging nostalgic turn in post-apartheid South Africa. The discussion considers the pleasure afforded by the sentimentality underpinning nostalgia and attends to the manner in which nostalgia coheres with the creative and aesthetic techniques of archival art. Scopophilia and the covert function of the sadomasochistic gaze are outlined. It is suggested that such acts of retrieval and repetition generally override ethical considerations because in part because they unfold from the realm of the unconscious. The paper draws on psychoanalysis by way of Frantz Fanon.

The purpose of this study was to examine the content of autobiographical nostalgic memories, the reasons for their recollection and the elicited emotions. Furthermore, this study aimed to show how specific groups generate different representations of nostalgic memories. A total of 244 men and women (young, adults and older people) participated in the study by answering open-ended and closed-ended questions about autobiographical nostalgia. Findings showed that nostalgic experiences related to significant “others”, life periods, leisure, places, and the loss of loved persons. The reasons of nostalgia were associated with good memories and pleasant times, with the desire for revival of the past, carefreeness, but also with the need to cope with loss, death and missed situations. Nostalgia also appeared to be related to both positive and negative emotions. Variations were found across generations. Older people seemed to be more prone to nostalgia and communicated their nostalgic experiences more often than younger individuals. Older people anchored their nostalgia in significant “others” who have passed away, while younger people turned to important personal life periods and leisure activities. Gender differences were detected within older generations. Adult and older aged females were more prone to nostalgia. They were sensitive in absence and in death of family members (parents, grandparents, spouses) experiencing bitter sweet emotions.

During the 1960s Greek films started to deal with the trauma of Anatolian refugees, and after 1974 several television series, based mainly on novels written by refugee authors, introduced to the broader Greek public the life of Greek Orthodox populations during the last years of the Ottoman Empire, including the atrocities they endured and their difficult period of resettlement in Greece. Between 2004 and 2008, the film director Kostas Koutsomytis adapted for television three novels dealing with life in Anatolia during the early twentieth century, with a nostalgic gaze on an era of harmonious ethnic cohabitation that was shattered by nationalism and foreign intervention. These TV series aired during the first decade of the twenty-first century, reflecting the Greco-Turkish rapprochement but also an idealization of the Ottoman "Belle Epoque" era, contributed to the shaping of public attitudes towards the Turks and the modifying of long-standing stereotypes.

APSTRAKT Nostalgija za Jugoslavijom kao društveni fenomen prisutna je u današnjem Mostaru, kao i drugde u zemljama-naslednicama bivše Jugoslavije. Iako se lokalne političke elite trude da izbrišu tragove jugoslovenske prošlosti (naročito u zapadnom Mostaru, koji je pod kontrolom Hrvata), dobar deo Mostaraca još uvek s nostalgijom pamti taj period. Sve do nedavno, nostalgiji se u društvenim naukama nije posvećivala velika pažnja; ako se o njoj i govorilo, shvatana je isključivo kao fenomen usmeren ka prošlosti. Novije studije, međutim, naglašavaju utopijski karakter nostalgije. Taj aspekt je posebno zanimljivo proučavati u kontekstu postoscijalizma. Na osnovu terenskog rada koji ja autorka sprovela između 2005. i 2008. godine, u članku se analiziraju narativi dve Mostarke i njihov odnos prema Jugoslaviji. Pokazuje se da se razlike u narativima mogu dovesti u vezu s nacionalnom pripadnošću i porodičnim poreklom, ali isto tako -ako ne i više -sa starošću i životnim stadijumom. U zaključnom delu rada pokušava se odgovoriti na pitanje da li jugonostalgija može predstavljati potencijalnu viziju za bolju budućnost i, ako da, pod kojim uslovima.

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This essay from 2006 theorizes "anti-imperialist nostalgia" as a way to trace the continuing significance and liberatory potential of unrealized desires for anticolonial liberation that underwrote decolonization struggles of the mid-20th century. I use nostalgia against the grain, not to name retrograde longings for an idealized past that never was, but instead to carry forward utopian longings for futures – past's futures – that have never yet been, and might continue to inspire movements in the present. This orientation toward the past and its unrealized anticipations of the future therefore aligns more with Gary Wilder's recent account of mid-twentieth century decolonization in Freedom Time than with David Scott's arguments about the transformed problem-space of the present in which Fanonian questions, Scott argues, are no longer the ones to ask.

This essay, which takes the Congo as the locus around which to constellate its examples, anticipates arguments about temporality, memory, prophecy, history, and liberation that would later underwrite my monograph, Bulletproof: Afterlives of Anticolonial Prophecy in South African and Beyond, which further develops the ideas of "past's futures" and "future's pasts" at work here.

The thesis of this dissertation is that the application of a 'golden age' narrative to history can sometimes be understood as the result of a series of interactions between two narrative paradigms – that of the golden age itself, and that of the imminent end of times, or: the apocalypse. This dissertation explores two such 'golden ages' – the reigns of Charlemagne and Süleyman the Magnificent – in relation to the ways in which, and the reasons why, apocalyptic anxiety manifested itself in ideology and culture during the periods in question. The compatibility of the paradigms is discussed, as are the various methodological pitfalls of this approach to historiographical inquiry. An investigation into the character of apocalyptic  during the two so-called 'golden ages' reveals differing manifestations, but similar underlying causes and factors, specifically widespread instability, rapid change, and the prevalence of syncretism in both arts and ideas. This chaos puts a great deal of stress on the semi-unconscious processing of collective experience that is the first step in the formation of historical memory. Strong narrative paradigms – such as the apocalypse paradigm – provide a stable ground for the organisation of experience into a comprehensible whole. In so doing, however, they create an artificially ordered and structured image of a period in the collective memory, which is a key ingredient in the establishment of a 'golden age'. Thus the two paradigms frequently form a reciprocally reinforcing relationship, exacerbating the tendency towards a theory of historical decline which serves to further entrench the idea of a golden age in historical memory. The dissertation concludes with an argument in favour of examining historiographical 'mistakes' or 'irrationalities', on the grounds that they are not less impactful on subsequent history and historiography for being 'false'.

O tempo se inscreve na cidade e a cidade, através de suas transformações, ausências e permanências se inscreve na memória de seus habitantes. Em pouco mais de trinta anos, quem viveu a infância em Pelotas (RS) nos anos 80 e início dos anos 90, ao confrontar a cidade lembrada e a cidade percebida, com frequência deixa transparecer o sentimento nostálgico em suas narrativas. Entre conversas com amigos pelotenses, cujas infâncias se deram na referida época, a nostalgia em seus relatos, no entanto, parece ir além de uma mera presença de passado, parece indicar também um sentimento menor ou maior de pertença e identidade com relação a Pelotas (RS), e não somente no presente, mas também sobre às projeções de futuro.
Desta feita, esse estudo busca compreender como os lugares nostálgicos são percebidos na cidade de Pelotas (RS) e como a imagem resultante dessa percepção se relaciona com a construção do senso de identidade e de pertencimento com a cidade. A estratégia para responder a essa indagação é o de identificar o tipo de relevância que os lugares possuem e a nostalgia acionada por eles. A abordagem metodológica se apóia na fenomenologia da Geografia Humanística, com enfoque nos elementos organizadores da imagem da cidade elaborados por Kevin Lynch.
Assim, através das entrevistas com pessoas nascidas entre 1977 e 1982, notamos que os lugares recordados podem ser classificados através de elementos muito similares aos sugeridos por Lynch, além de evocarem sentimentos nostálgicos de naturezas distintas. Também sugerirmos que, quanto mais marcos espaciais e zonas afetivas os sujeitos possuem, e quanto maior e mais positiva a nostalgia que provocam, maior a identidade e pertencimento com a cidade.

Time is embedded in the city and the city, through its transformation, absences and continuity is also embedded in the memory of its habitants. In the last 30 years or so, those who lived in the city of Pelotas (RS/Brazil) in the 80s and 90s, when confronted with the city they remember and the city they perceive, usually show the feeling of nostalgia in their narratives. Among conversations with friends from Pelotas (RS/Brazil), whose childhoods happened during this time, the nostalgia in their reports seems to go beyond the mere presence of the past. It seems to indicate a feeling of identity and belonging, in greater or lesser extents, to the city of Pelotas (RS/Brazil), and not only in the present, but also in relation to the future.
Therefore, this research aims at understanding how nostalgic places are perceived in the city of Pelotas (RS/Brazil) and how the resulting image of this perception relates with the building of the sense of identity and belonging to the city. The strategy to answer these questions is to identify the type of relevance that these places have and the nostalgia they incite. The methodological approach is supported by phenomenology in the Humanistic Geography with emphasis on the elements that organize the image of the city developed by Kevin Lynch.
Hence, through interviews with people born from 1977 to 1982, it is possible to notice that the places they remember can be classified through many elements similar to those suggested by Lynch, besides evoking nostalgic feelings of distinct natures. Furthermore, we can notice that subjects who have more spatial marks and affective zones, and greater positive feelings of nostalgia associated to those places, have greater identity of belonging to the city.

This paper will examine the way in which nostalgia has influenced the
direction of the Star Wars franchise, specifically, the years since George
Lucas sold his company, Lucasfilm Ltd, and with-it ownership of Star Wars
to the Walt Disney company. Disney created a sizable task for itself, but one it felt necessary to recoup its multi-billion-dollar purchase, seeking to bring Star Wars back into the public consciousness. Thereby not only appealing to a new younger audience but also re-engaging those that had been put off by Lucas’ prequel trilogy, which brought a very different look and feel to the fictional universe that they had experienced during their own childhood. In addition, Disney also wanted to make serious inroads in making the franchise appeal on a broader international basis, whilst still having to balance the inclusion of elements that are specific in defining Star Wars.

How then, did Disney go about trying to achieve all this, when its first film – The Force Awakens – was simultaneously hailed and decried as a nostalgic film?

RESUMEN En el inter-juego entre la tradición y la modernidad, la memoria tiende a seleccionar recuerdos más felices ante mundos que desaparecen frente a nuestros ojos, una nostalgia meditativa que trata de captar lo eterno en el marco de un mundo transitorio. En muchas culturas indígenas, como la de los wichí bazaneros del noroeste de Argentina, las concepciones sobre sus bosques muestran similitudes con concepciones de grandes poetas, en este caso de Robert Frost. Ambas surgen de un tipo de razonamiento en los cuales las percepciones e intuiciones vinculadas a ciertos elementos naturales dan lugar a visiones del mundo que fomentan la empatía humana con los seres de la naturaleza. Asimismo, los árboles, se asocian aquí con la longevidad, la vitalidad y la fertilidad. Nos concentramos en aquellas instancias en que los humanos y los árboles están conectados y, como en el poema "Abedules" de Frost, pueden vagar entre el bosque y las estrellas a través de ensueños que están culturalmente modelados. Estas concepciones son importantes en la medida en que son fuente de profundas emociones y alegrías en contextos de privación y malestar. Ellas pueden actuar como refugios frente a la declinación del sentido de pertenencia que causa la modernidad. Palabras clave : Wichí bazaneros-Robert Frost-concepción de los árboles-nostalgia meditativa-refugios ABSTRACT In the interplay between tradition and modernity, memory tends to select happier memories of worlds that disappear before our eyes, a meditative nostalgia that tries to capture the eternal within the framework of a transitory world. In many indigenous cultures, as the Wichí bazaneros of Northwestern Argentina, the conceptions about their forests show similarities with the conceptions of great poets, Robert Frost in this case. Both arise from a type of reasoning where perceptions and intuitions, linked to certain natural elements, give rise to worldviews that foster human empathy with natural beings. Likewise, trees, among the wichí, are associated with longevity, vitality and fertility. We focused on those instances where humans and trees are connected and, as in Frost's poem Birches , they can wander between the forest and the stars through their reveries that are culturally modeled. They are important, insofar as they are a source of deep emotions and joy in contexts of deprivation and malaise. They may act as havens against the decline of the sense of belonging that modernity causes.

I am an artist belonging to an artist run film lab (Artist Film Workshop, Melbourne). I use 16mm analogue moving image film as a creative medium, firstly because it carries alchemical processes that feel magically collaborative in the darkroom and secondly because film has an archival quality, better mobility, and can encompass a series of ideas that my ephemeral installations (or theatre sets) can’t match. Mostly, 16mm or analogue film feels like a soulmate medium with its own voice and a collaborative tension like that of a romantic relationship - it requires a giving (and consideration) of time. When a medium evokes this kind of romanticism I believe it transcends all other explanations and laws of attraction for an artist. Likewise, observations and feelings toward 16mm or analogue film exist in the viewer - particularly the evocation or perception of nostalgia. In this paper, I want to address the problem of nostalgia for analogue film and the division between observational nostalgia and feeling nostalgic. Using the tool of comparison between works by Bill Morrison and Tacita Dean, I’m driven to ask what the phenomenon of nostalgia means for my artistic medium of 16mm celluloid and more broadly all formats of analogue film or ‘cinema’. Potentially, this might assist us to move on from a common interpretation of analogue film as nostalgic and recognise what that label really means in ‘contemporaneity’, seeing it as one that carries its own complex shadows.

Martine Mussies, “Welshe weemoed”, in: Kelten: Mededelingen van de Stichting A. G. van Hamel voor Keltische Studies 69 (2016): 9.

Martine Mussies, “Welshe weemoed”, in: Kelten: Jaarboek van de Stichting A. G. van Hamel voor Keltische Studies 1 (2017): 17.

Dit artikel is een lexicografische uiteenzetting van het woord hiraeth en een verkenning naar de emoties de er mee worden geassocieerd. Allereerst wordt een overzicht gegeven van het woord in meerdere Keltische talen, vervolgens wordt gekeken naar het gebruik van het woord in de Welshe literatuur en tot slot wordt er gezocht naar mogelijke vertalingen in het Nederlands.

In an interview with Andrzej Marzec, Simon Reynolds
talks about his new book Retromania. He explains
why contemporary culture seems to feel a nostalgic
longing for what is past, or is even dependent on
its own past. The music critic examines hipster
culture, and such phenomena as recreativity,
British hauntology, American hypnagogic pop, and
revivalism. He attempts to show why contemporary
music can no longer be seen and described using
categories such as novelty and originality. He
also explains how changes in the reception and
consumption of music affect its creation.

2015 Roundtable on nation-building and social cohesion — organised by Unisa’s Archie Mafeje Research Institute in conjunction with the Mail & Guardian on August 12, 2015.

Read Jo-Ansie van Wyk's views on political amnesia and nostalgia in South Africa.

Critiques of nostalgia, typically from the left, tend to dismiss nostalgic criticism as reactionary and therefore uncritical. By focusing on explicit articulations of nostalgia, such critiques neglect the extent to which they themselves draw on nostalgic resources. Although recent scholarship on nostalgia in the sciences and the humanities has begun to question this long-standing belief in its inherent conservatism, we are still far from appreciating the spectrum of nostalgia’s critical valences. Thus, while critical theory’s affinities with melancholy and negative passions like despair have been widely recognized, few scholars have paused over its nostalgic roots.
How, then, can we understand nostalgia not as an ideological position or cultural mood, but as an affective-reflective impulse behind philosophical and socio-theoretical critique? How can we write an intellectual history of nostalgia—and, more specifically, of the developmental relationship between it and critical reflection on history, culture, and society—beyond simply cataloguing moments of ‘nostalgic thinking’ and relying on psychology or neuroscience in identifying it? My paper considers the ‘critical function’ of nostalgia in the modern period by outlining nostalgia’s role in the formation and animation of critical standards, hence, in the development and movement of critique. I conclude by briefly reflecting on the problems this raises for conceptual framing and methodology.

A Greek-language monograph on Greek cinema, especially on a single film, is a rare publishing event and as such of exceptional importance. The significance of The Invention of Place: Nostalgia and Memory in the Film 'A Touch of Spice' by Christos Dermentzopoulos is even greater as it examines a landmark work, Tassos Boulmetis's semi-autobiographical hit (2003), applying reception-studies approaches and anthropological analytical tools that are rarely used by Greek film scholars. The publication is also timely as it relates Greek cinema to memory and nostalgia drawing on the most recent academic debates on the ways in which contemporary societies reconsider their past, heal historical traumas and redefine identity.

The purpose of this study was to examine the content of autobiographical nostalgic memories, the reasons for their recollection and the elicited emotions. Furthermore, this study aimed to show how specific groups generate different representations of nostalgic memories. A total of 244 men and women (young, adults and older people) participated in the study by answering open-ended and closed-ended questions about autobiographical nostalgia. Findings showed that nostalgic experiences related to significant “others”, life periods, leisure, places, and the loss of loved persons. The reasons of nostalgia were associated with good memories and pleasant times, with the desire for revival of the past, carefreeness, but also with the need to cope with loss, death and missed situations. Nostalgia also appeared to be related to both positive and negative emotions. Variations were found across generations. Older people seemed to be more prone to nostalgia and communicated their nostalgic experi...

Ethnography is an inherently nostalgic exercise because it emulates a previous experience, a memory of fieldwork, articulated in dialogue with a previous ethnographic record or the narratives of others. In recent work (Theodossopoulos 2016), I have used the term ‘ethnographic nostalgia’ to refer to the inclination of ethnographers—and in general, authors who try to record cultural practices— to pursue nostalgic connections between a present social reality and what other people (previous authors or key informants) have said about a particular society before. Ethnographic nostalgia emerges from the comparison of the ethnographic object as encountered in the present with previous written or oral descriptions, for example, the ethnographic literature or local lore. According to this definition, most theories that attempt to uncover structural patterns—for example, most types of structuralism—flirt with the possibility of generating a certain nostalgic view. This is often predicated in the analytical attempt to identify an underlying structure by comparing an imperfect present with an increasingly idealized past.

This book tells the story of the so-called "prayer wall"--the German wall that didn't fall in 1989. The first cultural studies account of the Iron Curtain, it highlights pilgrimage, tourism studies, religious studies, iconography, and narratology to explain why this civilian answer to the Cold War military barrier emerged and how it was used.

Abstract

Studying change is at the heart of any investigation into social life, whilst continuity is seen as central to a stable identity over time. Change is an unsettling, but inevitable, part of everyday life; continuity speaks of repetition over time, unity and the comfort of belonging. This paper examines how themes of nostalgia and authenticity are evoked in telling family histories in order to negotiate change and create a continuous story of belonging. Three family histories demonstrate how material objects, places and claims of family resemblances are used to create both authentic identities and authentic selves belonging to the wider community. Where there is a break in the family story and the ‘world of restorable reach’ is no longer available nostalgia creeps in to replace personal stories with communal ones. Through using both nostalgia, to inform a sense of loss and sometimes a shared past, and authenticity, to create a sense of continuity within an overall arc of change, this paper shows how family histories can work to maintain identities over time, retaining a sense of ontological security and belonging in place.

Ursula Spannhake was born in 1966, in a town close to Düsseldorf in what was then West Germany. After escaping from Silesia, her mother began working as a young schoolteacher in the GDR, but subsequently fled to the west after being summarily dismissed from her position.  Between 2003 and 2006 Spannhake lived with her family in Dessau, a small town in former East Germany. She now lives in Berlin, where she works both as an occupational therapist for children in the city’s Charité hospital, and as an artist. In this interview, she presents her Installation which mixes real and fake German number plates conaining politically loaded acronyms.  Her deployment of these plates raises questions about the natutre of (N)ostalgia for the socialist past in the former East Germany.

CLICK LINK TO READ FULL TEXT:
https://doi.org/10.33929/sherm.2019.vol1.no1.06
Since the publication of Kenneth Howard's 2017 article, "The Religion Singularity: A Demographic Crisis Destabilizing and Transforming Institutional Christianity," there has been an increasing demand to understand the root causes and historical foundations for why institutional Christianity is in a state of de-institutionalization. In response to Howard's research, a number of authors have sought to provide a contextual explanation for why the religion singularity is currently happening, including studies in epistemology, church history, psychology, anthropology, and church ministry. The purpose of this article is to offer a brief survey and response to these interactions with Howard's research, identifying the overall implications of each researcher's perspective for understanding the religion singularity phenomenon. It explores factors relating to denominational switching in Jeshua Branch's research, social memory in John Lingelbach's essay, religious politics in Kevin Seybold's survey, scientific reductionism in Jack David Eller's position paper, and institutional moral failure in Brian McLaren's article.

"When looking back at the early history of photography, one is reminded that its protagonists made work that took on all of the long-established genres then found in painting: istoria, or edifying narrative, genre, or scenes from daily life, portraiture, still-life, and landscape. Furthermore, once established, photography swiftly took over one of the tasks that was traditionally reserved for painting, drawing, and sculpture, namely seizing the likeness of a person. Additionally, photography helped bring about the death of what was lauded -since the Early Renaissance- as the highest mission of the painter: the rendering of istoria. 

As if that were not enough, photography soon sought to take over the very look of paintings. I am thinking of the Pictorialist tradition circa 1900, which sought to evoke the softness of painting -a counterpart to Leonardesque sfumato, the atmospheric qualities in, say, Turner or Innes, and Impressionist brushwork. Additionally, photography could recreate scenes from the past, in emulation of painting, theatre, prose writing, or poetry -as in F. Holland Day’s The Seven Words (platinum prints, 1898, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)".