Nostalgia and Memory

Mediated nostalgia, community and nation: a case study of print media representations of the Canadian Football League in crisis and the demise of the Ottawa Rough Riders 1986-1996.

by John Nauright

Published in Sport History Review, 33:2 (2002), 120-135. Coauthored with Phil White.

This article examines the position of the Canadian Football League (CFL) in the context of 1990s Canada, the popular... more This article examines the position of the Canadian Football League (CFL) in the context of 1990s Canada, the popular discourses surrounding it of a nostalgia for an idealized Canada, and the crisis of Canadian identity as the Continent became increasingly integrated after the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Our focus is on a case study of the decline and eventual demise of the Ottawa Rough Riders, a CFL club located in the national capital that traced its roots to 1876, thus being almost as old as Canadian Federation. We examine the media framing of the decline and fall of the Rough Riders, laments for distinctive forms of Canadian sporting culture and the nostalgic frames in which the story was presented.

Hepper, E. G., Ritchie, T. D., Sedikides, C., & Wildschut, T. (2012). Odyssey's end: Lay conceptions of nostalgia reflect its original Homeric meaning. Emotion, 12, 102-119

by Timothy D. Ritchie

Hepper, E. G., Ritchie, T. D., Sedikides, C., & Wildschut, T. (2012). Odyssey's end: Lay conceptions of nostalgia reflect its original Homeric meaning. Emotion, 12, 102-119. doi: 10.1037/a0025167

Nostalgia fulfills pivotal functions for individuals, but lacks an empirically derived and comprehensive definition.... more Nostalgia fulfills pivotal functions for individuals, but lacks an empirically derived and comprehensive definition. We examined lay conceptions of nostalgia using a prototype approach. In Study 1, participants generated open-ended features of nostalgia, which were coded into categories. In Study 2, participants rated the centrality of these categories, which were subsequently classified as central (e.g., memories, relationships, happiness) or peripheral (e.g., daydreaming, regret, loneliness). Central (as compared with peripheral) features were more often recalled and falsely recognized (Study 3), were classified more quickly (Study 4), were judged to reflect more nostalgia in a vignette (Study 5), better characterized participants’ own nostalgic (vs. ordinary) experiences (Study 6), and prompted higher levels of actual nostalgia and its intrapersonal benefits when used to trigger a personal memory, regardless of age (Study 7). These findings highlight that lay people view nostalgia as a self-relevant and social blended emotional and cognitive state, featuring a mixture of happiness and loss. The findings also aid understanding of nostalgia’s functions and identify new methods for future research.

Responsibility, Nostalgia, and the Mythology of Canada as a Peacekeeper

by David Jefferess

:
University of Toronto Quarterly, Volume 78, issue 2, 2009, p.709-727
URI:
http://utpjournals.metapress.com/content/T1430242UK07M311

This article critically examines three examples of the way in which peacekeeping functions as a mythological sign... more This article critically examines three examples of the way in which peacekeeping functions as a mythological sign within the Canadian national imaginary, connoting a distinctly Canadian political ethos and ethics: the 1994 documentary Peacekeeper at War; the image “Remembrance and Peacekeeping” on the ten-dollar bill; and Lloyd Axworthy's 2003 political memoir Navigating a New World. The author argues that these representations of Canada's peacekeeper mythology reflect a nostalgic hunger for national distinction. As such, historical policies and initiatives such as Canada's contribution to the 1991 Persian Gulf War, its military intervention and abuses in Somalia in 1993, and the Canadian mission in Afghanistan's Kandahar province are produced within the narrative of peacekeeping as either acts of responsible action (i.e., bringing peace to the Other) or aberrations in an otherwise continuous narrative of Canada's benevolent action in the world.

Consumed by Nostalgia?

by Sylwia Chrostowska

published in Sub-stance

Barbara Lasic, ‘Splendid Patriotism: Richard Wallace and the Construction of the Wallace Collection’, Journal of the History of Collections, 21, 2 (November 2009), pp. 173-182.

by Barbara Lasic

Barbara Lasic, ‘Memorialized’, in Luca Basso et al (ed.). Interior Wor[l]ds (Turin: Allemandi University Press, 2010), pp. 143-148.

by Barbara Lasic

"La valise ou le cercueil": un aller-retour dans la memoire des Pieds-Noirs

by Amy Hubbell

Revue Diasporas: histoire et sociétés 12 (octobre 2008): 199-207.

Nostalgia: Digitalizing Past & Present Aesthetics (essay)

by Bill Psarras

Author: Bill Psarras / unpublished essay
Year: 2010

A critical approach upon the notion of Nostalgia, its potential existence within the communication technologies and... more A critical approach upon the notion of Nostalgia, its potential existence within the communication technologies and its relations within the fields of media arts.

'The rivers of Zimbabwe will run red with blood’: Enoch Powell and the post-imperial nostalgia of the Monday Club.

by Daniel McNeil

Journal of Southern African Studies 37.4 (2011)

In his influential account of postcolonial melancholia, Paul Gilroy suggests that contemporary reports of violence in... more In his influential account of postcolonial melancholia, Paul Gilroy suggests that contemporary reports of violence in Southern Africa reveal Britain’s inability to work through its grim history of imperialism and colonialism. Gilroy’s study links recent discussions of tragic Southern African themes to Enoch Powell’s ‘rivers of blood’ speech in 1968. However, it does not mention Powell’s critique of Britain’s ‘post-imperial nostalgia’ in a speech about Rhodesia later that year. This is not entirely surprising – the Conservative Central Office did not disseminate Powell’s call for Britons to move beyond sentimental attachment to ‘kith and kin’ in Rhodesia, and Rhodesian sympathisers in the Conservative Monday Club attempted to work around Powell’s refusal to support the ‘White Commonwealth’. Moreover, Powell opposed non-white ‘communalism’ whether he was emphasising the importance of the British Empire to English identity or challenging the ‘harmful myth’ of empire as an English nationalist. Consequently, this paper uses archival material relating to the Monday Club and the Rhodesian Ministry of Information in order to document three of the main strands of postcolonial melancholia that apply to Powellite figures on the right who defended (white) minority rule in Rhodesia and/or demonised (non-white) minority cultures in the United Kingdom.

Nostalgia and Homeland in Palestinian Poetry: The Poetics of Identity

by Hugh Lovatt

The Body of a Ghost: Returning to a Phenomenology of Nostalgia

by Dylan Trigg

Presented at SPEP 2009. Please do not cite without permission.

Why do certain memories involuntarily return to us over others? Far from being the sole concern of Proust scholars,... more Why do certain memories involuntarily return to us over others? Far from being the sole concern of Proust scholars, the question has significant implications for phenomenologists, too. In this paper, I will pursue the enigma of involuntarily memory through the lens of nostalgia. In doing so, I will ask two questions. First, how does nostalgic remembering differ from non-nostalgic remembering? Second, what is it that we are nostalgic for? In response to these questions, I will provide an account of embodiment that places spectrality and sublimity central, and at the same time tests the limits of phenomenological inquiry.