Table Of ContentContemporary
Nostalgia
Edited by
Niklas Salmose
Printed Edition of the Special Issue Published in Humanities
www.mdpi.com/journal/humanities
Contemporary Nostalgia
Contemporary Nostalgia
SpecialIssueEditor
NiklasSalmose
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NiklasSalmose
LinnaeusUniversity
Sweden
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This is a reprint of articles from the Special Issue published online in the open access journal
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Contents
AbouttheSpecialIssueEditor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
NiklasSalmose
NostalgiaMakesUsAllTick:ASpecialIssueonContemporaryNostalgia
Reprintedfrom:Humanities2019,8,144,doi:10.3390/h8030144 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
RandallStevenson
‘VisionIsolatedinEternity’:NostalgiaCatchestheTrain
Reprintedfrom:Humanities2018,7,95,doi:10.3390/h7040095 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
LaraRodrı´guezSieweke
Nostalgic Nuances in Media in the Red Book Magazine Version of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The
RichBoy”
Reprintedfrom:Humanities2018,7,131,doi:10.3390/h7040131 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
NannyJolma
‘AsIfThereWasNoFear’:ExploringNostalgicNarrativeinBoCarpelan’sNovelBerg
Reprintedfrom:Humanities2018,7,106,doi:10.3390/h7040106 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
MariaFreij
IntotheTexanSunset: Metanostalgia,Retro-,andIntrospectioninLarsGustafsson’s“Where
theAlphabetHasTwoHundredLetters”
Reprintedfrom:Humanities2018,7,103,doi:10.3390/h7040103 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
KamilaMirasova
PeculiaritiesofNostalgiainAynRand’sNovelAtlasShrugged
Reprintedfrom:Humanities2018,7,121,doi:10.3390/h7040121 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Marie-Agne`sGay
“ThePastIsNeverDead. It’sNotEvenPast”: TheAmbivalentCallofNostalgicMemoryin
RichardFord’sShortStory“Calling”(AMultitudeofSins,2001)
Reprintedfrom:Humanities2019,8,11,doi:10.3390/h8010011 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
CatherineDelesalle-Nancey
AtoningforNostalgiainIanMcEwan’sAtonement
Reprintedfrom:Humanities2018,7,105,doi:10.3390/h7040105 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
EvaKingsepp
The Second World War, Imperial, and Colonial Nostalgia: The North Africa Campaign and
BattlefieldsofMemory
Reprintedfrom:Humanities2018,7,113,doi:10.3390/h7040113 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
MennaAgha
NubiaStillExists:OntheUtilityoftheNostalgicSpace
Reprintedfrom:Humanities2019,8,24,doi:10.3390/h8010024 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
AmritaGhosh
SubvertingtheNation-StateThroughPost-PartitionNostalgia:JoginderPaul’sSleepwalkers
Reprintedfrom:Humanities2019,8,19,doi:10.3390/h8010019 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
v
AnaPetrov
Yugonostalgia as a Kind of Love: Politics of Emotional Reconciliations through Yugoslav
PopularMusic
Reprintedfrom:Humanities2018,7,119,doi:10.3390/h7040119 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
LubosˇPta´cˇek
OstalgiainCzechFilmsaboutNormalisationCreatedPost-1989
Reprintedfrom:Humanities2018,7,118,doi:10.3390/h7040118 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
LenaAhlin
Nostalgia,Motherhood,andAdoption:TwoContemporarySwedishExamples
Reprintedfrom:Humanities2019,8,8,doi:10.3390/h8010008 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
Pe´terKristo´fMakai
VideoGamesasObjectsandVehiclesofNostalgia
Reprintedfrom:Humanities2018,7,123,doi:10.3390/h7040123 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
ThomasLeitch
There’sNoNostalgiaLikeHollywoodNostalgia
Reprintedfrom:Humanities2018,7,101,doi:10.3390/h7040101 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
vi
About the Special Issue Editor
Niklas Salmose, Dr., holds a Ph.D. in English from University of Edinburgh and was a visiting
Professor at UCLA autumn 2018. He is currently Vice-Chair of the Department of Languages
at Linnaeus University, Sweden and the Program Coordinator for the Master Program in English
Language and Literature (MELL). He has published and presented internationally on nostalgia,
Nordic noir, Hitchcock, cinematic style in fiction, modernism, the Anthropocene and Hollywood,
animal horror, intermediality and sensorial aesthetics in fiction. He edited an issue on the
AnthropoceneforthejournalEkfrase2016,aspecialissueoncontemporarynostalgiaforthejournal
Humanities2018andabookonexperimentalSwedishfilmmakerEricM.Nilsson. Heispresently
editingthevolumeTransmediations. CommunicationAcrossMediaBordersforRoutledge. AtLinnaeus
University, he is a member of the Linnaeus University Center of Intermedial and Multimodal Studies
(IMS).OneofhismainresearchfieldsistheworkandlifeofF.ScottFitzgerald; hetranslatedand
editedFitzgerald’sshortstorycollectionAlltheSadYoungMenintoSwedish2014.Heisco-editinga
compositebiographyonFitzgeraldtogetherwithDr.DavidRennieaswellasthenewOxfordClassic
reissue of Fitzgerald’s The Last Tycoon. In November 2018 he was the third annual McDermott
lecturerattheUniversityFacultyClubinSt.PaulfortheFitzgeraldinSt.PaulSociety.
vii
humanities
Editorial
Nostalgia Makes Us All Tick: A Special Issue on
Contemporary Nostalgia
NiklasSalmose
DepartmentofLanguages,LinnaeusUniversity,35195Växjö,Sweden;[email protected]
Received:5August2019;Accepted:26August2019;Published:28August2019
Introduction
Nostalgiamakesusalltick: Itengages. Weliveinsocietiesorientedtowardsthenowand
thetomorrow,inaworldobsessedwithacomplexandproteanpresentseeminglyimperviousto
historicalcontinuity.Themanytomorrowsinherentineverynewtechnology,product,anddigitally
mediatedeventdriveusfurtherawayfromourcollectivehistories.Yetthepresentseemsstubbornly
rootedinthepast,asZygmuntBaumansoconvincinglyarguesinhisfinalworkRetrotopia(Bauman
2017). Thisoccursbothpolitically,asintherepeatedre-ignitionofhistory’sburiedfires,ranging
fromtheemergenceofISISasanultranostalgicforcetothere-emergenceofanostalgichard-rightin
Europeanpolitics,andculturally,asinthepersistentreturnofculturalproductionandconsumption
toanumberofkeypointsinourhistoryinarestlessandalwaysunsatisfiedattempttoreinterpret,
reuse,orreplaythatwhichisseeminglyvanished.Itappearsinthemostpressingissueofourtimes,
climatechange,andthediscourseoftheAnthropocene.Thisretrospectiveorientationisobservable
inallmajorcontemporarymediaforms,aestheticandsocialpractices.Romanticinclinationtowards
thepastmightseemirrational,butouremotionalconnectionstoourownbiographies,aswellas
acollectivesolidaritywithourchildhoods,traditions,imaginations,anticipations,anddreamsmayalso
bearationalresponsetomoderninstability.Nostalgia,then,appearsincreasinglytobeamodalityof
itsownwithmajorpotentialforunderstandinghowournowisshapedbyourthen,bothindividually
andcollectively.
Whetherweareinclined,personally,tobenostalgicorwearesomehowboundupintheexternal
andcontextualnostalgicwebs,nostalgiadictatesourlives.Beyondtheintimatebittersweetimmersions
ofnostalgia,conjuredbyaging,remembrance,death,time,childhood,loss,recovery,andmelancholia,
weareinfluencedbysuchthingsasretroshops,localproduce,conceptsofnationalstates,xenophobia,
communities,technologyadvancement,migration,andtheclimatecrisis. Theworldweinhabitis
justconstantlyshapedbyprivateandpublicnostalgias.Onewaytomakesenseofthecomplexflux
ofemotionsandtemporalitiesonourplanetinmodern,contemporarytimesistoinvestigateand
scrutinizetherolenostalgiahasonourdailylives,inpolitics,equality,sociology,psychology,history,
art,philosophy.Theseexaminationsaretrulyinterdisciplinary.
Thepurposeofthiseditorialisnottointroduceeachessayinthiscollection(theabstractswill
dojustfinehere),neitherisittosurveythehistoryofnostalgia.Myambition,albeitlimitedinscope
here,istoframeandproblematizetheworksinthiscollectionwithintheemergingfieldofnostalgia
studiesandreiteratesomeofmypreviousviewsonnostalgiaasanemotionalexperienceandan
aestheticmodality.Nostalgiastudieshavethepastdecadegainedinterestandimportanceinavariety
ofdisciplines,ofteninacomplexinteractionbetweendifferentdisciplinessuchasart,history,literary
studies,aesthetics,filmandmediastudies,communicationstudies,intermedialstudies,sociology,
psychology,neuroscience,historyofideas,andcolonialandpostcolonialstudies.Althoughnostalgia
studieshavenotyetformulatedatheoreticalframeworkforitspracticeandmethods,researchers
withinthisfieldinvestigatenostalgiaasacomplexsetofemotionsandhowtheseemotionsinteract
withdifferentcontexts.Apost-colonialist,forexample,wouldbeexploringtheroleofnostalgiainboth
Humanities2019,8,144;doi:10.3390/h8030144 1 www.mdpi.com/journal/humanities
