Cultural History of Nostalgia

Taught in the Department of History, University of Victoria, 2016
Course by Dr. Kat Sark
Course Objectives:

This course explores various manifestations of nostalgia in cultural history, across different cultural artefacts and mediums. The course discussions will engage with the following questions:
  • What is nostalgia?
  • What types of nostalgia are there and how can they be compared?
  • Why does nostalgia manifest itself in contemporary culture and narratives?
  • What role does nostalgia play in constructions of identity?
  • How is nostalgia represented in film, advertising, and popular culture?
Other themes and topics of the course include: the history of nostalgia, memory, commemoration, monuments, urban nostalgia and manufactured nostalgia. 
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Students will develop the skills of analyzing works from different genres and mediums as cultural artefacts (works of art in their historical contexts), as well as enhance their speaking, writing, and critical thinking skills through assignments and participation in class discussion. 
Course Readings and screenings:
  1. Svetlana Boym, The Future of Nostalgia (2001)

Course Outline: 

(Subject to changes / in progress)

DATE

Week 1
TOPICS

What is nostalgia? 

READINGS:  
DISCUSSION: 
  • How is nostalgia produced in the digital age? 
  • What are some digital tools and technologies that produce nostalgic elements? 
EXTRA
Week 2
Nostalgia and Photography

READINGS:
CASE STUDIES: 
  • Robert Doisneau and GOOGLE
  • Richard Avedon 
ASSIGNMENT:  Present a photograph and describe the elements of nostalgia. 
Week 3
Nostalgia and Film

READINGS:
  • Christine Sprengler, Screening Nostalgia: Populuxe props and Technicolor aesthetics in contemporary American film, 2009
  • Christian Keathley, Cinephilia and History, or The Wind in the Trees, 2006

CASE STUDIES: 
  • American Graffiti, dir. George Lucas (1973) 
  • Jules et Jim, dir. François Truffaut (1961)


ASSIGNMENT: Write a short scene analysis from a film of your choice, deconstructing elements of nostalgia.
Week 4
Nostalgia and Film, part 2

READINGS: 
  • Vera Dika, Recycled Culture in Contemporary Art and Film: The Uses of Nostalgia (2003)

CASE STUDIES: 
  • Midnight in Paris, dir. Woody Allen (2011)
Week 5
Nostalgia and Advertising

READINGS:
  • Darrel D. Muehling and David E. Sprott, “The Power of Reflection: An Empirical Examination of Nostalgia Advertising Effects,” in Journal of Advertising. Vol. 33, No. 3 (Autumn, 2004), pp.25-35. 
  • Association for Consumer Research, Nostalgic Experience  
ASSIGNMENT: Present a nostalgic advertising poster or clip. 
Week 6 
Nostalgia and Pop Culture 

READINGS:
  • Susan Steward, On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection (1984)
  • John Frow, “Tourism and the Semiotics of Nostalgia” in October, Vol. 57 (Summer, 1991), pp.123-151. 
  • Linda Hutcheon, “Irony, Nostalgia, and the Postmodern,” 1998
  • The NY Times, Gen-X Nostalgia Boom
Week 7 
Nostalgia and Musik

READINGS: 
  • David Sigler, “Funky Days Are Back Again”: Reading Seventies Nostalgia in Late-Nineties Rock Music
  • Psychology Today, Music-Evoked Nostalgia
ASSIGNMENT:  Present a nostalgic song. 
Week 8
Urban Nostalgia

READINGS: 
Week 9
Techno-nostalgia, digital nostalgia

READINGS:
Week 10 
Conclusion

CASE STUDIES: 

DISCUSSION:  

Bibiliography: 

Svetlana Boym, The Future of Nostalgia (2001) 
Jan Assman, Religion and Cultural Memory (2006)Patricia Looker, The Search for Meaning in Nostalgia (2006)
Vera Dika, Recycled Culture in Contemporary Art and Film: The Uses of Nostalgia (2003)
Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (1991)
Ralph Harper, Nostalgia: An Existential Exploration of Longing and Fulfillment in the Modern Age (1966)
Christopher Shaw and Malcolm Chase (eds), The Imagined Past: History and Nostalgia (1989)
Vivian Sobchack (ed.), The Persistence of History: Cinema, Television and the Modern Event (1996)
David Lowenthal, The Past is a Foreign Country (1985)
Andreea Deciu Ritivoi, Yesterday’s Self: Nostalgia and the Immigrant Identity (2002)
Dennis Walder, Postcolonial Nostalgias: Writing, Representation, and Memory (2011)
Esra Özyürek, Nostalgia for the Modern: State Secularism and Everyday Politics in Turkey (2006)
Jean Pickering and Suzanne Kehde (eds.) Narratives of Nostalgia, Gender and Nationalism (1997)
Susan Steward, On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection (1984)
Christine Sprengler, Screening Nostalgia: Populuxe props and Technicolor aesthetics in contemporary American film (2009)
Dylan Trigg, The Aesthetics of Decay: Nothingness, Nostalgia, and the Absence of Reason (2006)
Fred Davis, Yearning for Yesterday: A Sociology of Nostalgia (1979)
Janelle L. Wilson, Nostalgia: Sanctuary of Meaning (2005)
John J. Su, Ethics and Nostalgia in the Contemporary Novel (2005)
Maurizio Peleggi, The Politics of Ruins and the Business of Nostalgia (2002)
Pam Cook, Screening the Past: Memory and Nostalgia in Cinema (2005)
Susannah Radstone, The Sexual Politics of Time: Confession, nostalgia, memory (2007)
Disclaimer: The contents of this site are copy-right protected and cannot be reproduced without the author's permission. © Katrina Sark, 2012.