ESRC seminar 2010 – University of Strathclyde – United Kingdom
Introduction: The study of nostalgia is especially timely because technological advancements and the digital media environment are producing new dynamics between past and present, and determining relationships between individuals and communities. New technology presents a paradox: on the one hand, it has the capacity to stimulate nostalgia by bringing large numbers of globally diverse people together, but technologies can also create fragmentation and alienation from the present; our increasingly mediated relationship to the material world has led to perceptions of social and moral decline and loss of traditional values.
The study of nostalgia is important because it influences the behaviour of consumers, marketers, writers and other cultural producers, and because it underpins or connects with a range of trends in contemporary culture.
The ‘Nostalgia in the 21st Century’ project consists of six one-day seminars hosted at the University of Strathclyde, together with a writing competition, Glasgow Remembered: Food and Nostalgia. This competition will culminate in a family event on 13 March 2010, organised as part of the Aye Write! literary festival and also the ESRC Festival of Social Science.
Call For Papers: This call for papers parallels a new seminar series on “Nostalgia in the Twenty-First Century,” funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council. The series aims to promote further enquiry into the uses of nostalgia in contemporary culture and to strengthen links between theory and practice. The series is cross-disciplinary in nature and includes speakers from marketing, English studies, geography, historical and critical studies, theatre, film and television studies, education, biological sciences and the humanities. The series will encourage inter-disciplinary dialogue, compare theoretical underpinnings and open the area to multiple methods of research enquiry.
Topics: Research topics that would fit this special issue include but are not limited to:
* The role of technology in shaping and disseminating nostalgia
* Retro consumption
* The relationship between nostalgia and taste
* Nostalgia and material culture
* Perspectives on nostalgia in film, art and media
* Collective memory
* Urban nostalgia – architecture, cultural and sporting events
* Nostalgia and heritage marketing
* Diaspora – nostalgic evocations of the homeland
* Nostalgia and Sustainability
* Nostalgic desires for authenticity
Contact:
16 Richmond Street,
Glasgow G1 1XQ. Scotland,
United Kingdom
Email: nostalgia-seminars(AT)strath.ac.uk
Contact Numbers: +44 (0)141 552 4400
Source: http://www.strath.ac.uk/nostalgia/
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