Nostalgia critique
Abstract
Nostalgia is a widespread structure of feeling in Western modernity. While critique of nostalgia has tended to be hostile and dismissive, associating the phenomenon with dominant and conservative forces in society, this paper argues that nostalgia is a valuable way of approaching the past, important to all social groups. Acknowledging the diversity of personal needs and political desires to which nostalgia is a response, the critique offered here focusses on the limitations that the nostalgic structure of rhetoric may place on effective historical interpretation and action.
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For nostalgia to logically exist, there is always and everywhere a positing of discontinuity between a prelapsarian past and a postlapsarian present.
“but there is always and everywhere, for nostalgia to logically exist, a positing of discontinuity.”
From Nostalgia: sanctuary of meaning (2006) · cites this paper as Tannock (1995)
Tannock describes nostalgia as working as a periodizing emotion: 'that was then, and this is now.'
“He notes that nostalgia works as a periodizing emotion: 'that was then, and this is now.'”
From Nostalgia: sanctuary of meaning (2006) · cites this paper as Tannock (1995)
Collecting appears to serve the function of nostalgia: by sanctioning soothing and utopian images of the past, nostalgia lets people adapt both to rapid social change and to changes in individual life histories.
“Collecting appears to serve the following function of nostalgia: 'by sanctioning soothing and utopian images of the past, [nostalgia] lets people adapt both to rapid social change and to changes in individual life histories' (Tannock 1995).”
From Nostalgia: sanctuary of meaning (2006) · cites this paper as Tannock 1995
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Nostalgia: sanctuary of meaning
(2006) · Choice Reviews Online · doi:10.5860/choice.43-6888 · Cited by 250 · see citing works
Visit, Separation, and Deconstructing Nostalgia: Russian Students Travel to Their Old Home
LOMSKY-FEDER, E., & RAPOPORT, T. (2000) · Journal of Contemporary Ethnography · doi:10.1177/089124100129023819 · Cited by 33
- Authors
- Tannock, S.
- Corresponding author
- Tannock, Stuart
- ORCID
- Tannock, Stuart
- Venue
- Cultural Studies
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 1995-10
- Volume
- 9
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 453-464
- ISSN
- 0950-2386 (ISSN-L)
- 1466-4348
- OpenAlex
- W4251627978
- Cited by
- 259
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 10 · 2025: 19 · 2024: 14 · 2023: 10 · 2022: 10 · 2021: 27 · 2020: 27 · 2019: 29 · 2018: 7 · 2017: 12 · 2016: 8 · 2015: 8 · 2014: 10 · 2013: 4 · 2012: 7
- FWCI
- 0.00
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Cultural Studies (publishedVersion)
- UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
- ORCA Online Research @Cardiff (Cardiff University) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Philosophy › Memory, History, Trauma, Identity
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › History › Philosophy, History, and Historiography
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Nostalgia and Consumer Behavior
- Keywords
- nostalgia, structure of feeling, Western modernity, historical interpretation, rhetoric, political desire, social groups
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