Nostalgic Memories Research Articles

Journey into The Psyche: Decoding Dreams in Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s Queen of Dreams

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni is one among the famous South Indian writers. She has concentrated in many areas such as diaspora, immigration, alienation, frustration, cultural clashes, myth and miracles. This research paper helps to guide the readers in a different aspect of entering into the dreamy world of Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni through the novel Queen of Dreams. Most of the researchers have focused on the familiar themes of Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. But this article analyses the parallel study of Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams and Divakaruni’s Queen of Dreams. The concept of dream, similarities and dissimilarities, ideas relevant to dream, pros and cons of dream, how dream plays a psychological impact in the lives of human beings are explained in a crystal clear manner. The first generation immigrants are the people who moved to a new country and are the first in their families. They face many challenges adjusting to a new culture, language and societal norms while preserving their own heritage. The second generation immigrants are the people who are born in a new country to immigrant parents. They reveal the cultural influences from both their parents’ heritage and the society in which they are raised. The psychological sufferings of first and second generation are going to be dealt in this paper. The longingness and nostalgic memories affect present life as well as their career. One should maintain equanimity and mental balance to take great effort to achieve success in one’s own life. One way or the other way people try to chase their dreams and to attain wish fulfillment. The dream is driven by unconscious wish fulfillment. Freud explains that dream as a manifestation of one’s deepest desires and anxieties which are relating to repressed or oppressed childhood memories. Dreams are nothing but the stories and images of a mind which are created during the sleeping time. Dreams reveal the contents of subconscious mind. In the novel Queen of Dreams, the dreams and meanings of Mrs. Gupta play a vital role.

Influence of Positive/Negative Emotions Towards Autobiographical Memories on Impressions of the Conversation and Conversation Partner During Nostalgic Memory Sharing

ABSTRACTWe investigated the effects of positive/negative emotions towards autobiographical memories on impressions of the conversation and conversation partner during memory sharing in a reminiscence therapy setting. Fifty‐six older (Mage = 69.3) and 60 younger (Mage = 20.7) participants' net emotional tendency (positive/negative) towards autobiographical memories and depressive symptoms were evaluated using validated rating scales. Positive/positive and positive/negative age‐matched random pairs shared a nostalgic memory through free conversation. Participants with a negative emotional tendency towards autobiographical memories in positive/negative pairs tended to feel less “easy” about the conversation. Participants with a positive emotional tendency towards autobiographical memories in positive/negative pairs had a more negative impression of their partners. Our data provide insight into the relationship between net emotional tendency towards autobiographical memories and depression and suggest that an individual's net emotional tendency towards autobiographical memories potentially affects the outcome of group reminiscence therapy.

“Hello, It’s Me, Auntie Netta! I am Calling from Abroad”: Aunties and Digital Diasporas in Nimmi Harasgama’s Online Performances

The structure of diaspora in the twenty-first century cannot be fully understood without due attention to how diasporic relations to home are mediated by digital technologies. I suggest we must look in the direction of diasporic cultural production that utilizes such technologies to better understand how postcolonial spatiality is unmistakably commensurate with digital diasporas, or advancements in communication technologies that foster new cartographies. This study posits that the campy embodiment of the auntie figure by the Sri Lankan actress Nimmi Harasgama on YouTube (2009–2015) re-imagines diasporic affiliations to home/s by locating and encapsulating diaspora within circuits of digital connectivity. Harasgama’s YouTube alter-ego “Auntie Netta,” is an asylum-seeking diasporic character whose itinerary is makeshift. However, her communication with her friend “Gladys” via Skype calls remains constant. Both beyond and through the jest abundant in these clips, the calls remain an anchor to Netta’s historical sense of self and signify an embodied mapping of the transnational subjecthood occupied by both Netta and her creator, Harasgama. Through a close analysis of Harasgama’s performance and complication of the familiar figure of the auntie, I suggest that the digital diaspora is necessarily configured and co-constructed by the diasporic body, nostalgic memory, and digital connectivity.

Relationship Between Nostalgia Proneness, Generativity, and Ego Integrity.

This study examined the effect of nostalgia proneness on the level of achievement of developmental tasks during the later stages of adulthood (generativity and ego integrity) and the indirect effect of nostalgia on ego integrity. The level of nostalgia proneness changes with age and contributes to subjective well-being in old age. We assumed that nostalgia proneness affects generativity and ego integrity. To confirm the causal relationship between nostalgia proneness and achievement of developmental tasks, a longitudinal study was conducted. We conducted an Internet survey twice with 600 Japanese adults (aged 20-87). The first and second surveys (T1 and T2) were conducted in March 2021 and March 2022, respectively. The questionnaire comprised the Inventory of Psychosocial Balance scale, positive/negative nostalgia proneness scale, and state functions of the nostalgia scale. An autoregressive path model indicated that high and low levels of positive and negative proneness, respectively, predicted ego integrity. The results of the mediation analysis suggested that social connections have an indirect effect on ego integrity and that people who tend to feel positive emotions are less likely to feel negative emotions when they remember nostalgic memories, which leads to a sense of social connection and the acquisition of ego integrity. The findings provide an understanding of the processes through which developmental tasks are facilitated in later adulthood and elucidate the efficacy of psychosocial interventions in older adults.

Nostalgia, authenticity and wellbeing in autistic and non-autistic young adults

Research in the general population has shown that nostalgia is associated with greater wellbeing through increased authenticity. It is well documented that autistic versus non-autistic individuals experience reduced wellbeing. This is the first study to explore nostalgia in autistic people and whether nostalgia might support the wellbeing of autistic people in the same way as non-autistic. This study had two aims: (i) to explore the autistic experience of nostalgia (proneness, triggers of nostalgia, related affect) and (ii) to examine the interrelationships at trait level between nostalgia, authenticity and wellbeing in autistic and non-autistic young adults. Participants (n = 230) completed an online questionnaire and reported about their nostalgic experiences, wellbeing, authenticity and autistic traits. Participants also wrote about either a nostalgic oran ordinary memory and rated how happy they felt after reflecting on the memory. With regards to the interrelationships at trait level within the whole cohort, nostalgia was not associated with increased authenticity or wellbeing. In contrast, authenticity was associated with increased wellbeing. However, nostalgia was not associated with greater wellbeing through increased authenticity. Differences in these interrelationships between autistic and non-autistic individuals are also discussed. The autistic experience of nostalgia was similar to the non-autistic, with the exception that autistic participants were less prone to nostalgia. At state level, findings also suggested that reflecting on nostalgic memories may boost positive affect in autistic as well as non-autistic individuals. This study may have implications for boosting wellbeing in autistic people.

What a Desirable Woman Is Like: Hsia Moon and the Cultural Agenda of Leftist Film Companies in Hong Kong, 1951–1966

Hsia Moon (Xia Meng) was a famous leftist film star in postwar Hong Kong, whose social persona was tailored for specific cultural purposes under the prevailing star system. Her early cinematic roles generally portrayed exemplars of women’s empowerment, as derived from the programmatic ideas of the New Culture Movement in the early decades of the twentieth century. But from 1958 onward, Hsia Moon’s characters began to transform in a more traditional and family-oriented direction. In her film Garden of Repose (1964), for example, the female protagonist voluntarily retreats into the family space, offering a quite different answer to the question of women’s liberation. While this story, one among many, threatened to undermine Chinese women’s painstaking struggle for individual freedom that had been in train for many decades, Hsia Moon’s well-maintained social persona justified the harmonious landscape of family life and conjugal relations, redefining women’s family-oriented position as a kind of “Chineseness.” This Chineseness was not limited to the artistic level. Rather, it was a sociocultural representation of leftist filmmakers’ nostalgic memory of their distant homeland, that is, Mainland China itself. And at another level, Chineseness also embodied the Chinese Communist Party’s desire to maintain cultural ties with British-controlled Hong Kong through the political metaphor of a “big family,” which in China’s prescribed hierarchical order alluded to the state. In this sense, Hsia Moon and her characters provided an alternative option to women’s empowerment within the master narrative of the nation-state and the cinematic star system helped shape that narrative.

A railway modernity. Izmalkovo train station in Ivan Bunin’s work

The article discusses the everyday life of Izmalkovo, a train station in Imperial Russia’s Oryol governate. Among its frequent visitors and commuters was Ivan Bunin. The writer often resided in the area and used the station’s postal and passenger services. Housed in a small and inconspicuous railway station building of the fourth rank, Izmalkovo gradually became an important logistical hub for the writer. Izmalkovo’s postmark grew increasingly familiar to prominent figures of Russian modern art and literature. Following the devastating events of 1917, life in the Russian provinces becomes perilous for those living there. The political crisis forced Bunin to move from Izmalkovo to Yelets, where he had to seek a secret sanctuary at the local notary’s house. Next, the writer was forced to flee the country. Nostalgic memories of the humble station’s chronotope haunted Bunin for the rest of his life. Using an extensive body of examples, the scholar traces the changing perception of the station in the Nobel Prize winner’s writings, from the romantic impressions of his youth to the agonizing reflections on the ‘cursed days.’

Spur of the moment: the unintended consequences of excessive food purchases and food waste during Ramadan

PurposeFood waste, a global conundrum with adverse socioeconomic and environmental implications, occurs when more money is spent on food during occasions akin to Ramadan. This study examines the moderating role of antecedents (festive experience, nostalgic food memory, perceived scarcity, and religiosity) to understand the impacts of excessive food buying on Ramadan food waste.Design/methodology/approachA cross-sectional survey was performed with a self-administered questionnaire using Google Forms to gather data on social media. Notably, 349 valid responses were analysed via Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) with SmartPLS 4 for model development and hypothesis testing.FindingsFestive experience, nostalgic memory, and perceived food scarcity could explain excessive buying behaviour. In this vein, excessive food buying contributed to Ramadan food waste. Meanwhile, religiosity was found to moderate excessive food-buying behaviour.Practical implicationsThe empirical findings offered useful insights for practitioners and policymakers to implement optimal marketing strategies and interventions that improve responsible consumption and minimise food waste.Originality/valueThis study provided a sound understanding of consumer buying behaviour during Ramadan regarding food waste and overconsumption. The current work delineated the role of descriptive, injunctive norms and cognitive dissonance in shaping buying behaviour during Ramadan.

“Stay tuned!"

“Stay tuned!"

Pancultural nostalgia in action: Prevalence, triggers, and psychological functions of nostalgia across cultures.

Nostalgia is a social, self-relevant, and bittersweet (although mostly positive) emotion that arises when reflecting on fond past memories and serves key psychological functions. The majority of evidence concerning the prevalence, triggers, and functions of nostalgia has been amassed in samples from a handful of largely Western cultures. If nostalgia is a fundamental psychological resource, it should perform similar functions across cultures, although its operational dynamics may be shaped by culture. This study (N = 2,606) examined dispositional nostalgia, self-reported triggers of nostalgia, and functions of experimentally induced nostalgia in young adults across 28 countries and a special administrative region of China (i.e., Hong Kong). Results indicated that nostalgia is frequently experienced across cultures, albeit better valued in more-developed countries (i.e., higher national wealth and life-expectancy). Nostalgia is triggered by psychological threats (especially in warmer countries), sensory stimuli (especially in more-developed countries), and social gatherings (especially in less-developed countries). The positive or negative affect prompted by experimentally induced nostalgia varied by country, but was mild overall. More importantly, recalling a nostalgic (vs. ordinary) memory increased social connectedness, self-continuity, and meaning in life across cultures. In less-developed countries, recalling an ordinary memory also conferred some of these functions, reducing the effect size of nostalgia. Finally, recalling a nostalgic (vs. ordinary) memory augmented state satisfaction with life in countries with lower quality of living (i.e., lower life-expectancy and life-satisfaction). Overall, findings confirm the relevance of nostalgia across a wide range of cultures and indicate cultural nuances in its functioning. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Фольклорная символика рассказа И. Бунина «Ворон»

The article is devoted to a poetical analysis of Ivan Bunin’s short story “The Raven” (1944), which is a part of the cycle of short stories about love “Dark Alleys”. The research is undertaken in order to comprehend the role of folklore in the formation of the poetic world of Bunin’s love story, to identify the emotional and aesthetic perspectives of the images, motifs, and the central conflict of the short story, which is contextually conditioned and mediated by folklore symbols. The research is novel in that it is the first to analyze in detail the short story “The Raven”, its character system (images of the father, the son, the daughter, Elena Nikolaevna) and to identify the most important folklore components of the central conflict of the story (a love conflict). As a result, it is shown that the active involvement of folklore symbols (the folklorized concept “The Raven”, a color palette of folklore), which were close and understandable to the Parisian community of Russian emigrants, allowed Bunin (who adhered to national traditions, including folklore ones) to bring additional poetic intentions into the text of the shott story, imbued with imagery familiar from childhood and bright fairy-tale emotionality, to bring the perception of the text created in exile closer to the nostalgic memory of the abandoned homeland of Russia.

Un ricordo di Franco Gnoli

Abstract This essay is a nostalgic memory of moments spent together with Franco Gnoli at the University of Milan.

Effect of Nostalgic Memory Retrieval on Anthropomorphism

Nostalgic memory often involves one’s close relationships and fosters a sense of closeness to the target person in the memory. The motivation for social connections is a critical factor behind anthropomorphism (humanizing non-human targets). When people feel lonely, they anthropomorphize non-human targets to fulfill their need for social connection. In contrast, people reverse-anthropomorphize (dehumanize) targets when their sociality motivation is fulfilled. This study clarifies the relationship between nostalgia and anthropomorphism and tests two hypotheses. First, nostalgic memory causes a reverse-anthropomorphism of the target that is unrelated to nostalgic memory because nostalgia fulfills the sociality motivation. Second, a nostalgic memory about a target fosters its humanization because people feel close to the target in their nostalgic memory. We conducted two online experiments and analyzed data from 252 participants. They were assigned several tasks, including memory retrieval, loneliness checks, assessing nostalgia proneness, and ascertaining their closeness to the target. The results indicated that nostalgic memories reverse-anthropomorphized unfamiliar targets, while nostalgic memories about a target fostered targeted anthropomorphism.

The Homecoming of Ștefan Sadovnicov

Ștefan Sadovnicov is the artist who approaches several genres of painting. His creative activity is based on the connection of the three fields of arts: painting, music and literature. He writes poems, evokes the old times, paints. That is why the city of his childhood and youth – Bălți – appears to him represented as a universe rich in colors, shapes, sounds, etc. In all the works with this motif we feel the artist’s affection for the city of his soul. Ștefan Sadovnicov is one of the few artists of great sensitivity, depth and intelligence. The series of paintings with the title „the city that no longer exists...”, executed in the 70s–80s, are not just simple landscapes with buildings specific to the time, they retain deep meanings. The main reasons are longing, going back in time, nostalgic memories, etc. the visual artist did not simply paint the urban landscape, but selected the histories of the streets and buildings of Bălți, looked for old pictures and asked the residents. He approached the subject philosophically, drawing a parallel between the city and people who have souls.

“Mis on möödas ega see ei kordu…” Kurt Eiskopi kirjad Edith Eiskopile aastaist 1940–1941 kui ajalootunnistaja tunnistus

This article examines the letters of a young Estonian man, Kurt Eiskop (1919–1944), to his beloved and future wife, Edith Eiskop (1919–1991). Kurt Eiskop’s 55 letters were handed over to the Estonian Cultural History Archives in 2022, as a result of the collection campaign “Letters in my life”, a competition organised cooperatively by the Estonian Life Stories Association and the archives. Most of the letters were written between 16 April 1940 and 29 June 1941, while Eiskop was doing his military service in the army of the Estonian Republic. In this article I consider his letters as a testimony of a historical witness, based on what he saw and experienced during the arrival of the Red Army forces in the Estonian Republic in June 1940 and its subsequent annexation. What interests me in Eiskop’s letters as testimony is, first and foremost, the author’s subjective experience, which can be seen in the way emotions are expressed in his letters. As is characteristic of love letters, the main topic of Eiskop’s letters is emotions – longing for the beloved and nostalgia for life before the army. In retrospect, the latter seems like a paradisaical idyll to him, while the present reality seems like being in prison. In addition to the expression of emotions, the subjective experience of the writer emerges in the letters through descriptions of everyday life in the army, which also contain the author’s thoughts, moods, and attitudes toward the new regime. It emerges from Eiskop’s letters that service in the army of the Estonian Republic was disagreeable to him, as it separated him from his beloved and impeded their beginning a life together. The arrival of reinforcements of the Red Army in the Estonian Republic in June 1940 put the Estonian Army and those performing their military service there in a complicated situation: they had to get used to alienating new circumstances and rules; likewise there were fears that the war would spread to the Estonian territory and that soldiers would be sent to fight the war for the Soviet Union. In a politically complicated time, which also entailed complications for personal life, writing letters provided support and a way of sustaining relationship despite being apart. The letters Eiskop wrote to his beloved during his military service became a kind of refuge for him, a safe world, the creation of which was enabled by nostalgic memories. These are poeticised and idealised images of the past which provide comfort and strength, while intensifying his closeness to the addressee. It is interesting that in Eiskop’s letters nostalgia is not always unidirectionally aimed at the past, but some memories are bound to the author’s hopes and plans for the future. However, nostalgia is not the only emotion that Eiskop expresses in his moments of solitude. Eiskop’s letters are also filled with longing for the beloved, expressed by the author in bursts of emotion, sometimes more controlled, sometimes more expressive, in some letters also as desperation.

Restoring The Nostalgic Memories of the Egyptian Television on Maspero Zaman’s Facebook

Restoring The Nostalgic Memories of the Egyptian Television on Maspero Zaman’s Facebook

Fact of Feeling: Memory in the Victorian Ghost Story

ABSTRACT: This paper examines how the Victorian ghost-story genre troubles realist visions of memory as a store of immutable past experiences. Analyses of ghost stories by Ellen Wood, Amelia B. Edwards, Dinah Mulock, and George MacDonald reveal that they portray memory as constructed, biased, and fallible. Through first-person and frame narratives, these stories illustrate how the act of recollection falsifies memories by reshaping them to better fit affective narrative arcs, thus depicting a form of nostalgic memory that foregrounds feeling at the cost of accuracy. Yet, even as these ghost stories highlight the impossibility of truly accurate recollection, their focus on traumatic events emphasizes the felt imperative to accurately recall and communicate emotional experiences.

Dzienniki (Diaries) of Jarosław Leon Iwaszkiewicz: World War II (1939–1945) in the writer’s individual perception

The article aims to characterize a topical issue through poetics: the Second World War from the perspective of J. Iwaszkiewicz’s individual perception from September 2, 1939, when the Luftwaffe began to bomb Warsaw until the moment of its liberation on January 18, 1945. It is noted that the writer recorded on the pages of his diary not only his psychological state but also that of other people. Particular attention is paid to the first entry of August 12, 1939, where the breakdown of the peaceful life was recorded, during which the writer had been immersed in the problems of art, intending to create a free-form work, a kind of ANNABEL, where the images of the composer Karol Szymanowski, the poets J. Tuwim and S. Witkiewicz would have appeared. The article focuses on the entry of August 28, 1939, which tells about the writer’s deep love for Ukraine and his nostalgic memories of it. The study emphasizes the historical value of almost daily records dedicated to mobilization, dated August 24 and 31, and those testimonies contained in the diary entries from September 4, 5 and 6, which describe the terrible pictures of people fleeing from Podkowa and the state of the road to it, destroyed by bombing. The entry about a terrible entrance to Warsaw, dated September 7, and that with a group portrait of crowds on the roads, dated September 8, are considered from the point of view of artistic skill. The article studies the poetics of tragic scenes of Warsaw residents’ escape and analyzes the entries depicting the underground cultural life of the capital, the secret academy dedicated to K. Szymanowski’s death anniversary, the series of J. Iwaszkiewicz’s lectures about contemporary Polish poetry, Stawisko, where the writer hid writers, artists and fighters against the invaders, about the Uprising and post-war reconstruction. Attention is also given to the recollection of K. Baczynski and W. Draczynska’s marriage.

Exploring tourists’ social identities in a similar-others destination: the case of Chinese tourists in North Korea

PropósitoEste estudio pretende contribuir a la teoría de la identidad social en turismo mediante la exploración de las reflexiones de los turistas chinos que visitan Corea del Norte y cómo negocian su identidad intergrupal en este destino similar a otros.Diseño/metodología/enfoqueLos datos se recogieron mediante plataformas en línea y entrevistas en profundidad. Se utilizó un enfoque cualitativo a través de análisis temático para analizar los dos conjuntos de datos.ResultadosLos resultados mostraron que, al encontrarse con norcoreanos percibidos como otros similares en el entorno social, económico y político en el que estaban integrados, los turistas chinos a menudo se categorizaban a sí mismos como turistas ordinarios, turistas con trato preferente y turistas vicarios basándose en las similitudes intergrupales con los norcoreanos. También, realizaban comparaciones intergrupales para aumentar su autoestima a nivel grupal y colectivo, y desarrollaban las estrategias correspondientes para generar distintos compromisos emocionales grupales.Originalidad/valorSe presenta un marco teórico en el que se analizan las características de las identidades sociales de los turistas que visitan un destino similar a otro, lo que contribuye a nuestra comprensión de la naturaleza interactiva y contingente de la identidad social en turismo y responde a la necesidad de abordar los contextos sociales más amplios en los que se inserta la identidad de grupo de los turistas.Implicaciones prácticasSe recomienda que los destinos refuercen las relaciones amistosas y únicas con sus mercados emisores similares para mejorar su atractividad. Los destinos deberían esforzarse por mejorar la experiencia de los turistas de sus mercados emisores similares, estimulando su afecto positivo a nivel colectivo, su resonancia emocional y sus recuerdos nostálgicos, y evitando las emociones negativas.

Pamięć nostalgiczna i językowa w listach lwowian do Profesor Zofii Kurzowej (w dwudziestą rocznicę śmierci Uczonej)

NOSTALGIC AND LINGUISTIC MEMORY IN THE LETTERS FROM LEOPOLITANS TO PROFESSOR ZOFIA KURZOWA (ON THE 20TH ANNIVERSARY OF DEATH) The article refers to Professor Zofia Kurzowa’s research in the field of the Polish language of Kresy – the Eastern Borderlands. The authors of the article analyse letters that Leopolitans displaced in the postwar period wrote to Professor Kurzowa after the publication of her book about the Polish language of the prewar Lviv. The analysis refers to memory studies and describes the nostalgic and linguistic memory found in the letters of Leopolitans. The nostalgic memory draws on the longing for the homeland, for something that was precious in life but was lost. A manifestation of linguistic memory is what was preserved in the language of prewar Lviv.