What Nostalgia Was

What Nostalgia Was PDF Author: Thomas Dodman
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022649294X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
In What Nostalgia Was, historian Thomas Dodman traces the history of clinical "nostalgia" from when it was first coined in 1688 to describe deadly homesickness until the late nineteenth century, when it morphed into the benign yearning for a lost past we are all familiar with today. Dodman explores how people, both doctors and sufferers, understood nostalgia in late seventeenth-century Swiss cantons (where the first cases were reported) to the Napoleonic wars and to the French colonization of North Africa in the latter 1800s. A work of transnational scope over the longue duree, the book is an intellectual biography of a "transient mental illness" that was successively reframed according to prevailing notions of medicine, romanticism, and climatic and racial determinism. At the same time, Dodman adopts an ethnographic sensitivity to understand the everyday experience of living with nostalgia. In so doing, he explains why nostalgia was such a compelling diagnosis for war neuroses and generalized socioemotional disembeddedness at the dawn of the capitalist era and how it can be understood as a powerful bellwether of the psychological effects of living in the modern age.

What Nostalgia Was

What Nostalgia Was PDF Author: Thomas Dodman
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022649294X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
In What Nostalgia Was, historian Thomas Dodman traces the history of clinical "nostalgia" from when it was first coined in 1688 to describe deadly homesickness until the late nineteenth century, when it morphed into the benign yearning for a lost past we are all familiar with today. Dodman explores how people, both doctors and sufferers, understood nostalgia in late seventeenth-century Swiss cantons (where the first cases were reported) to the Napoleonic wars and to the French colonization of North Africa in the latter 1800s. A work of transnational scope over the longue duree, the book is an intellectual biography of a "transient mental illness" that was successively reframed according to prevailing notions of medicine, romanticism, and climatic and racial determinism. At the same time, Dodman adopts an ethnographic sensitivity to understand the everyday experience of living with nostalgia. In so doing, he explains why nostalgia was such a compelling diagnosis for war neuroses and generalized socioemotional disembeddedness at the dawn of the capitalist era and how it can be understood as a powerful bellwether of the psychological effects of living in the modern age.

On Nostalgia

On Nostalgia PDF Author: David Berry
Publisher: Coach House Books
ISBN: 1770566236
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 114

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Book Description
From Mad Men to MAGA: how nostalgia came to be and why we are so eager to indulge it. From movies to politics, social media posts to the targeted ads between them, nostalgia is one of the most potent forces of our era. On Nostalgia is a panoramic cultural history of nostalgia, exploring how a force that started as a psychological diagnosis of soldiers fighting far from home has come become a quintessentially modern condition. Drawing on everything from the modern science of memory to the romantic ideals of advertising, and traversing cultural movements from futurism to fascism to Facebook, cultural critic David Berry examines how the relentless search for self and overwhelming presence of mass media stokes the fires of nostalgia, making it as inescapable as it is hard to pin down. Holding fast against the pull of the past while trying to understand what makes the fundamental impossibility of return so appealing, On Nostalgia explores what it means to remember, how the universal yearning is used by us and against us, and it considers a future where the past is more readily available and easier to lose track of than ever before. "If nostalgia was a disease in the Good Old Days, then David Berry's cogently argued, intelligent, and witty book should be prescribed reading for anyone wishing to understand what sometimes feels like a peculiarly virulent epidemic of our current times." —Travis Elborough "We're so lucky to have a writer as thoughtful, funny, smart, and cutting as David Berry. Nostalgia dictates so much of our world, and there isn't a better cataloger, critic, and guide through it than Berry." —Scaachi Koul

Consumed Nostalgia

Consumed Nostalgia PDF Author: Gary Cross
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231539606
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 372

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Book Description
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be. For many of us, modern memory is shaped less by a longing for the social customs and practices of the past or for family heirlooms handed down over generations and more by childhood encounters with ephemeral commercial goods and fleeting media moments in our age of fast capitalism. This phenomenon has given rise to communities of nostalgia whose members remain loyal to the toys, television, and music of their youth. They return to the theme parks and pastimes of their upbringing, hoping to reclaim that feeling of childhood wonder or teenage freedom. Consumed nostalgia took definite shape in the 1970s, spurred by an increase in the turnover of consumer goods, the commercialization of childhood, and the skillful marketing of nostalgia. Gary Cross immerses readers in this fascinating and often delightful history, unpacking the cultural dynamics that turn pop tunes into oldies and childhood toys into valuable commodities. He compares the limited appeal of heritage sites such as Colonial Williamsburg to the perpetually attractive power of a Disney theme park and reveals how consumed nostalgia shapes how we cope with accelerating change. Today nostalgia can be owned, collected, and easily accessed, making it less elusive and often more fun than in the past, but its commercialization has sometimes limited memory and complicated the positive goals of recollection. By unmasking the fascinating, idiosyncratic character of modern nostalgia, Cross helps us better understand the rituals of recall in an age of fast capitalism.

Nostalgia

Nostalgia PDF Author: Clay Routledge
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317363736
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 163

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Book Description
Nostalgia is a topic that most lay people are familiar with, but, until recently, few social scientists understood. Once viewed as a disease, nostalgia is now considered to be an important psychological resource. It involves revisiting personally cherished memories that involve close others. When people engage in nostalgia, they experience a boost in positive psychological states such as positive mood, feelings of social connectedness, self-esteem, self-continuity, and perceptions of meaning in life. Since nostalgia promotes these positive states, when people experience negative states (such as loneliness or meaninglessness), they use nostalgia to regulate distress. This book explains in detail what nostalgia is, how views of it have changed over time, and how it has been studied by social scientists. It explores issues like how common nostalgia is and whether people differ in their tendency to be nostalgic. It looks at the triggers and inspiration for nostalgia, and the emotional states that are associated with it. Finally, the psychological, social, and behavioral effects of engaging in nostalgia are discussed. This volume provides the most comprehensive overview to date of the social scientific research into the complex and intriguing phenomenon of nostalgia. It will be of interest to a range of students and researchers in psychology and beyond, and its accessible writing style and engaging anecdotes will also be appreciated by a wider, non-academic audience.

Was It Yesterday?

Was It Yesterday? PDF Author: Matthew Leggatt
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438483503
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description
Bringing together prominent transatlantic film and media scholars, Was It Yesterday? explores the impact of nostalgia in twenty-first century American film and television. Cultural nostalgia, in both real and imagined forms, is dominant today, but what does the concentration on bringing back the past mean for an understanding of our cultural moment, and what are the consequences for viewers? This book questions the nature of this nostalgic phenomenon, the politics associated with it, and the significance of the different periods, in addition to offering counterarguments that see nostalgia as prevalent throughout film and television history. Considering such films and television shows as La La Land, Westworld, Stranger Things, and American Hustle, the contributors demonstrate how audiences have spent more time over the last decade living in various pasts.

The Nostalgia Factory

The Nostalgia Factory PDF Author: Douwe Draaisma
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300198523
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 134

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Book Description
“An entertaining discussion” of the role memory plays in our lives as we age, including an interview with Oliver Sacks (Times Higher Education Supplement). When we can’t call to mind the name of someone we’ve known for years, or walk into a room and forget what we came for, we start worrying. Are these lapses just “senior moments,” or something serious like dementia? In this book, a renowned specialist explores the topic of memory in later life—not only the problems but the surprisingly unexpected pleasures it can offer, such as the “reminiscence effect.” Avoiding jargon, Douwe Draaisma explains neurological phenomena and also includes a long interview with Oliver Sacks, who speaks of his own memory changes as he entered his sixties. Draaisma moves smoothly from anecdote to research and back, weaving stories and science into a compelling description of the terrain of memory and forgetfulness, dismantling myths and helping us to value the abilities of the aging mind. “For readers, the most welcome aspect of this book may be his heartening examples of the wisdom that comes with old age.”—The Washington Post “He engages with topics of considerable social and psychological importance…his use of varied sources is refreshing.”—Times Higher Education Supplement

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (with bonus content)

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (with bonus content) PDF Author: Michael Chabon
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0812993675
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 705

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Book Description
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The epic, beloved novel of two boy geniuses dreaming up superheroes in New York’s Golden Age of comics, now with special bonus material by the author “It's absolutely gosh-wow, super-colossal—smart, funny, and a continual pleasure to read.”—The Washington Post Book World One of The New York Times’s 100 Best Books of the 21st Century • One of Entertainment Weekly’s 10 Best Books of the Decade • Finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award, National Book Critics Circle Award, and Los Angeles Times Book Prize A “towering, swash-buckling thrill of a book” (Newsweek), hailed as Chabon’s “magnum opus” (The New York Review of Books), The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay is a triumph of originality, imagination, and storytelling, an exuberant, irresistible novel that begins in New York City in 1939. A young escape artist and budding magician named Joe Kavalier arrives on the doorstep of his cousin, Sammy Clay. While the long shadow of Hitler falls across Europe, America is happily in thrall to the Golden Age of comic books, and in a distant corner of Brooklyn, Sammy is looking for a way to cash in on the craze. He finds the ideal partner in the aloof, artistically gifted Joe, and together they embark on an adventure that takes them deep into the heart of Manhattan, and the heart of old-fashioned American ambition. From the shared fears, dreams, and desires of two teenage boys, they spin comic book tales of the heroic, fascist-fighting Escapist and the beautiful, mysterious Luna Moth, otherworldly mistress of the night. Climbing from the streets of Brooklyn to the top of the Empire State Building, Joe and Sammy carve out lives, and careers, as vivid as cyan and magenta ink. Spanning continents and eras, this superb book by one of America’s finest writers remains one of the defining novels of our modern American age. Winner of the Bay Area Book Reviewers Award and the New York Society Library Book Award

Nostalgia Is Heartless

Nostalgia Is Heartless PDF Author: Sarah Lahey
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1647422108
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 350

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Book Description
“A thrilling and immersive work of speculative climate fiction.” —Kirkus Reviews The second installment in the topical, award-winning Heartless Series, Nostalgia Is Heartless delves into a world on the brink of climate catastrophe. Pregnant, unemployed, and living back home with her father, scientist Quinn Buyers wonders how she got to this point. Her famous scientist mother is still mysteriously missing, the planet is at risk from a massive solar storm, the pesky Transhumans want to take a colony to Titan, and her assisted living companion, a robotic meerkat, is showing clear signs of anxiety and depression. But her biggest challenge is her partner. How can she reconcile her long-distance relationship with this reserved, enigmatic cyborg? This time, Quinn’s adventures take her across the globe to Antarctica . . . where it rains all day, every day. Full of humor and whimsy, Nostalgia Is Heartless will delight readers as they follow Quinn’s race to save her family, her planet, and—hopefully—her love life.

Intimations of Nostalgia

Intimations of Nostalgia PDF Author: Michael Hviid Jacobsen
Publisher: Policy Press
ISBN: 1529214769
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Book Description
This volume investigates the relationship between nostalgia and contemporary social issues. From history and political theory to marketing and media, each chapter discusses the way nostalgia has been presented within a specific disciplinary context and shows how nostalgia as a topic of research has evolved over time.

Zeitgeist Nostalgia

Zeitgeist Nostalgia PDF Author: Alessandro Gandini
Publisher: John Hunt Publishing
ISBN: 1789044480
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 135

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Book Description
'From Trump's backward-looking promise to "make America great again" to the hipster's fondness for a pre-industrial age of craft, nostalgia saturates our world. Gandini's book is a remarkable and insightful guide to this phenomenon, laying out the deep roots of its origins and setting out the contours of its limits.' Nick Srnicek, co-author of Inventing the Future: Postcapitalism and a World Without Work We live an age of nostalgia, incarnated by populist fantasies of “taking back control” and making nations “great again". In the long aftermath of the 2007-08 economic crisis, nostalgia has been established as the cultural zeitgeist of Western society. Populist fantasies of nostalgia represent a cry for help against the demise of the societal model of the postwar era, based on stable employment and mass consumption. The promise of an impossible return to the 'good life' of the 20th century, Gandini contends, particularly appeals to the older generations, who are incapable of making sense of the evolution of Western societies after decades of globalization and neoliberal policies. The younger generations, in the meantime, are instead trying to build a new 'good life' based on another form of return, this time to old practices of craft production and consumption.