Themes Of Nostalgia Research Articles

Little Lamb’s Roast Pig: A Minor Intervention

This article revisits the racial imaginaries and cultural fictions perpetuated in two of Charles Lamb’s so-called “China essays”: “A Dissertation upon Roast Pig” (1822) and “Old China” (1823). Using theorizations of the minor and minorness borrowed from Asian Americanist critique, it calls for a recalibration of distorted global scales and false histories. It demonstrates how themes of nostalgia and childhood promote the innocence of minor forms, such as the familiar essay, the fable, and the children’s tale, which provide cover for “harmless” texts and authors as mild and gentle as “little Lamb.” Positioning Lamb as a minor Romantic author, this article highlights his mastery of these minor forms that serve as a shelter for his imperial and racial innocence.

‘Qu’il est loin mon pays’: Staging (Be)longing in Massenet’s Sapho

ABSTRACT At first glance, Jules Massenet's opera Sapho (1897) might appear to water down its source material, substituting the searing social commentary of Alphonse Daudet's novel (1884) with idealised tropes of the Midi. This article, however, seeks to complicate this reading, arguing that Sapho moves beyond the regionalism of its operatic predecessors, while entirely reimagining Daudet's novel for a new medium. It highlights how the themes of nostalgia and belonging are established in Henri Cain and Arthur Bernède's libretto, reiterated by Léon Carvalho's staging, and intensified in Massenet's score, thereby nuancing and enriching our understanding of adaptation for the operatic stage.

Exploring the Exile Poetry of Mahmud Darwish: A voice of angst, anger, and alienation

Mahmoud Darwish is one of the most prominent Palestinian poets of the 20th century, known for his powerful and poignant poetry that captures the angst, anger, and alienation of the Palestinian people during the Nakba (the Palestinian exodus). His poetry is marked by a deep sense of loss and exile, as well as a fierce resistance and determination to survive and thrive in the face of adversity. His poetry continues to resonate with readers around the world as an authentic voice of Palestinian identity and resistance. Exile poetry can be a form of protest against injustice and oppression, and is often characterized by themes of nostalgia, longing, and a sense of displacement. Mahmud Darwish's exile poetry is a prime example of this genre, reflecting the experiences of the Palestinian people due to the ongoing conflict in the region. Mahmud Darwish's poetry is known for its evocative themes of exile, displacement, and alienation. He explores the concept of home, the longing for a sense of belonging, and the idea of identity. He also writes about the impact of exile on the Palestinian community, how it has affected their cultural and social identity, and the struggle to maintain a sense of self in a foreign land. Despite the pain and suffering caused by exile, Darwish encourages his readers to never give up hope and to continue fighting for justice and freedom. The paper attempts to explore the theme of exile in the porty of Mahmud Darwish.

Stereoscopic London: Plays of Oscar Wilde, Bernard Shaw and Arthur Wing Pinero in the 1890s, by Gül Kurtulu?

Reviewed by: Stereoscopic London: Plays of Oscar Wilde, Bernard Shaw and Arthur Wing Pinero in the 1890s by Gül Kurtuluş Mary Christian (bio) Stereoscopic London: Plays of Oscar Wilde, Bernard Shaw and Arthur Wing Pinero in the 1890s, by Gül Kurtuluş; pp. 182. Berlin: Peter Lang, 2020, $48.95. In Stereoscopic London: Plays of Oscar Wilde, Bernard Shaw and Arthur Wing Pinero in the 1890s, Gül Kurtuluş examines late-Victorian theatrical depictions of metropolitan life in the works of three prominent turn-of-the-century dramatists, paying special attention to "the idea of community as formulated by the needs and requirements of its members" (14). Each of the three main chapters focuses on one well-known play: Oscar Wilde's Lady Windermere's Fan (1892), Arthur Wing Pinero's The Second Mrs. Tanqueray (1893), and George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion (1912). The chapters also give secondary attention to other works by the respective dramatists. Along with detailed close readings of the dramatic texts themselves, Kurtuluş draws attention to the London locations portrayed or mentioned in the plays. Some of the neighborhood information she provides is unsurprising—the average reader will probably already know that Mayfair is a posh London district and that Hoxton is not. However, some of these location notes will likely be new to many readers and might suggest new ideas regarding the subtexts of certain scenes. For example, Kurtuluş points out that Clerkenwell, the district inhabited by the troupe of actors in Trelawny of the "Wells" (1898), was an area with centuries of theatrical history, dating back to performances of mystery plays in the Middle Ages—a fact that might well enhance one's enjoyment of Pinero's play, with its themes of nostalgia and theatrical evolution. The book's introduction declares an interest in "the rules imposed by urban society" and the ways in which these rules are dramatized in the selected plays (14). The rules that receive the most attention throughout the book are the demands for women's sexual purity (or at least the appearance of purity), the adherence to prescribed gender roles, and the distinctions between different levels in the social class hierarchy. The author notes numerous details of plot, dialogue, and character that reflect the plays' preoccupation with these social requirements. These analyses, however, might lead readers to ask: If Londoners of this period were made to follow strict expectations regarding gender, sex, and class, then to what extent were these rules and hypocrisies unique to London? In what ways were demands for female chastity in London, and the way such demands were enforced, distinct from the conditions of smaller towns and rural areas? Kurtuluş acknowledges the need to address this question, or nearly acknowledges it, in the analysis of The Second Mrs. Tanqueray. She suggests that the Tanquerays' unhappy migration from London to Surrey illustrates that "a shift in setting . . . does not provide a remedy for the Victorian social diseases of class division and repressive morality that infect all the city's inhabitants" (95). The chapter's conclusion adds that "nineteenthcentury London and Victorian Britain in general evinced a quite hypocritical sense of morality and justice" (96). Many scholars of nineteenth-century literature would easily agree with this statement. The book, however, offers no clear response to the obvious follow-up question: If this hypocrisy is characteristic of Britain in this period, what sets London apart? Readers are left to wonder if Kurtuluş is writing a book about theatrical depictions of London or about theatrical depictions of Victorian class hierarchy and sexual mores more generally. [End Page 482] If the title's emphasis on "London" seems incompletely explained by the book as a whole, the Shaw chapter raises questions regarding the time period designated as the book's focus, "the 1890s." Shaw was active as a theater critic and dramatist during the 1890s, but this activity is scarcely mentioned. Instead the chapter focuses on Pygmalion and a handful of other plays—Man and Superman (1903), The Doctor's Dilemma (1906), and Heartbreak House (1919)—all of which were written and set in the twentieth century. These plays offer valuable insights on London, and certainly comment more explicitly on...

Longing in the Past, Belonging in the Future: An Autoethnographic Fiction

In this autoethnographic writing, we explore the concepts of longing and belonging through a collaborative writing process that is fictional at times and autoethnographic at times. We present an experimental and arts-based approach to analyzing and understanding memories, and themes of nostalgia, belongingness, and longing in the present day. Through our autoethnographic fiction (Bochner and Ellis 2016; Ellis 2004) we explore questions such as: what is it like to long and belong, what is it like to long for a future that is embedded in the past, what is it like to futurize/co-futurize memories, and what if the past is the pre-present? As immigrants to Toronto, coming from nations that were once colonized, and still remain in the peripheries of colonization, we ponder about our bodies occupying the third space that we are living in, the feelings of nostalgia and belonging in our fiction. We write about our belongingness to our roots and the trajectories of our beings and think what decolonizing the the concept of memories might evoke. Methodologically, we draw from Erin Manning’s (2016) idea of going against method to propose a collaborative autoethnographic fiction writing and collaging practice that implicates our memories and bodies with our surroundings and other bodies, human, beyond human, and material, as instruments of research. We suggest that the decolonization and dehistoricization of memories and our conceptions of longing, belonging, and creating futures embedded in the past can happen by futurizing our notions of memories. We hope that writing a fiction in conversation with one another and in synchronicity of each other’s experiences will allow us to deconstruct and problematize our understanding of memories, the frictions between avant-garde and nostalgia and interspersing the collaging practice will allow us to build our stories and explore belongingness and nostalgia, longing for something indefinite and unwanted memories.

“In the Key of Loss”

Abstract This article addresses a particular example of the intersection of literature and cinema in the film Call Me By Your Name, made by Luca Guadagnino and based on the novel of the same title by André Aciman, and the themes of nostalgia and loss in the work of both. The film results from the encounter, in its production and in a large number of retrospective discussions, between the cosmopolitan writer André Aciman and the Italian director Luca Guadagnino who, while attentive to global issues such as the trans-Mediterranean migration which features in the film, is very much grounded in his home region of northern Italy. The (rather differently figured) Jewish and homosexual identities of the two protagonists in the novel and the film are also addressed.

Nostalgia, nation and bollywood: second-generation Indian-Americans and the consumption of movies

ABSTRACT A study of Bombay Cinema, or the so-called Bollywood, will no longer be complete without looking at the consumption of Bollywood movies because this cinema is now global in a specifically diasporic sense. This paper is an attempt to unveil the nature of engagement between Bollywood movies and second-generation Indian diaspora. This study is based on the coming of age of the second generation of the Indian-American diaspora and their engagement with twenty-first century Bollywood movies. A group of young Indian Americans were interviewed over the telephone to find out the ways in which second-generation consume movies in comparison to that of the first-generation migrants. This article shows how their readings of Bollywood movies converge on themes of nostalgia, nation, and feminism, along with how their situational identities play out to resolve their sometimes contradictory cultural expectations.

Música de ópera by Soledad Puértolas

Reviewed by: Música de ópera by Soledad Puértolas Joanne Lucena Puértolas, Soledad. Música de ópera. Anagrama, 2019. Pp. 274. ISBN 978-8-43399-870-5. In her latest novel, Musica de ópera (2019), Soledad Puértolas continues to impact readers with her development of the psychological nuances of each character, particularly women, a technique she utilizes in her prior novels, Queda la noche, Una vida inesperada, La señora Berg, Historia de un abrigo, Cielo nocturno, and Mi amor en vano, amongst others. Her collections of short stories, such as Compañeras de viaje, to name one, include some of the Zaragozan author’s favorite themes also highlighted in her novels, the journey (both interior and exterior), memory, identity, loneliness, nostalgia and female friendships. In Música de ópera Puértolas employs the historical backgrounds of pre–Civil War Spain, the Spanish Civil War, the end of World War II, Dwight Eisenhower’s visit to Spain in 1959, the Russian takeover of Prague in 1968, and the legalization of divorce in Spain in 1981, to provide a backdrop to which the characters in an extended family react in the novel. Nevertheless, the event and the actions surrounding them are less important, rather it is Puértolas’ focus on character analysis that is at the heart of the text. It is of note that the author presents history as a framework for her characters’ reactions, there is no judgement nor subjectivity, even when describing the Spanish Civil War which is very much a divisive topic in contemporary Spain. Musica de ópera narrates the lives of a wealthy family beginning with the matriarch, Elvira Ibáñez, a widow who has no concept of organizing the accounts and bills that she has inherited from her departed husband. Elvira is not a practical person, deferring first to her husband, and then her accountant, Antonio Perelada, for any questions regarding finances, except in the matter of her outrageous spending. Her trajectory reflects one of many upper class women of her epoch, [End Page 445] one that underlines adhering to the patriarchal system and traditional role models. Even when she travels abroad, she does so in company of a friend and then later her “niece” Victoria (in reality, her husband’s cousin’s daughter) as women of her social standing were apt to do. Elvira’s sons, Justo and Alejo, both supported the Nationalist troops in Spain during the Spanish Civil War and although they suffered somewhat, the war had no effect on their social standing. In fact, Elvira doesn’t really dwell on the war because her life has not radically changed and she continues to frequent concerts and luncheons with her friends. This is a direct contrast with the scenes depicted in the kitchen where all of the female staff have a relative fighting in the trenches on the Republican side of the Spanish Civil War and whose lives are tragically affected. Elvira, as a person of wealth and privilege, has the luxury of focusing on frivolities and when she turns 50 it is time for her to focus on peace, silence, and her retirement from the world. The only thing that saves this character from absolute vapidity are the letters that she transcribes every night to the accountant addressed to her favorite childhood friend, Dorotea, who died years ago. The letters reflect her fear of having failed as a mother and other such internal torments that provide the reader with a sense that Elvira is not as dull as she was originally portrayed, and it is her social class that has relegated her to this position. It is these letters, representing Puértolas’s theme of nostalgia, that link the three different generations of women, Elvira, Valentina and Alba, the latter two being the custodians of Elvira’s memories. The second half of the novel centers on the narratives of the aforementioned characters, Valentina and Alba, Alejo’s daughter and Elvira’s granddaughter. Valentina, who although she first accompanied her traditional aunt on her travels, revels in her solo travel and independence and losing her virginity in a one-night stand. Her character’s development is more salient than...

On the Theme of Nostalgia in Paolo Bacigalupi’s Post-Apocalyptic Novel The Windup Girl

After the massive outbreaks of violence and catastrophes at the dawn of the twentieth century, experiences of dislocation and dissonance, as well as their reflection in the human psyche, nostalgia, captivated the interest of various disciplines from literary studies to politics. Although viewed through various lenses, nostalgia as a state of a wistful affection for the past still permeates the present discourses. These studies on nostalgia overlap with a rising trend in the Western literary canon, the surge of derivative forms of utopia. Building on the contemporary interdisciplinary approaches on nostalgia and dystopian tradition, this paper investigates the individual’s position in a dystopian setting with an emphasis on the experience of nostalgia in Paolo Bacigalupi’s novel The Windup Girl (2009). This article aims to investigate the role of nostalgia in a post-apocalyptic dystopian setting with a focus on various experiences of nostalgia. I argue that Bacigalupi’s novel is a nuanced exploration of the experience of nostalgia and a meditation on the connection between nostalgia and utopianism, due to its engagement with both individual and collective experiences of nostalgia.

Listening to community: The aural dimensions of neighbouring

This article examines the multisensory nature of everyday life and the ways in which sound shapes experiences of community, presenting findings from a research project, ‘Place and belonging: What can we learn from Claremont Court housing scheme?’ Whilst acknowledging the multisensory nature of perception, the discussion focuses on sound in particular, exploring the different ways that sound (or lack of it) informed residents’ neighbouring practices and sense of community. Despite general fears of ‘loss of community’ due to increasing individualisation, the findings show the continued importance of neighbouring relations, which point to varied types of community attachment. Cases are presented from the data focusing on the themes of nostalgia, uncertainty and feelings of difference. These themes provide telling insights into the ways in which community is experienced and how people living in the same housing scheme interpret sounds differently. All residents were exposed to similar sound ecologies, but their significance and meanings were understood in vastly different ways. The article offers an original contribution by arguing that sound is an important dimension of everyday life in urban settings, which is related to affective and emotional dimensions of community, which have, as yet, been glossed over in the sociological literature.

An interview with Robert Irwin

In this interview, conducted over email in September 2015, Robert Irwin reflects on his relationship with Andalusia and the first encounter that prompted him to write his celebrated book The Alhambra. He discusses why themes of nostalgia and exile pervade the cultural history of Muslim Spain, and how the splendours of medieval Andalusia continue to haunt modern Arabic prose and poetry. Considering how Salman Rushdie and Tariq Ali position al-Andalus in their fiction, Irwin offers insights into the more general influence of Arabic literary traditions on British and western European culture. Commenting on the relevance of the history of Andalusia in relation to Islamophobia and cultural racism in the contemporary west, he cites the importance of studying the past for what it was, rather than co-opting it for moralizing examples, cautioning that western interventions in the Middle East and the ideological posturing of ISIS should not resort to outdated and misleading vocabulary of “crusade” and “caliphate”.

Narrating family histories: Negotiating identity and belonging through tropes of nostalgia and authenticity

Studying change is at the heart of any investigation into social life, whilst continuity is seen as central to a stable identity over time. Change is an unsettling, but inevitable, part of everyday life; continuity speaks of repetition over time, unity and the comfort of belonging. This article examines how themes of nostalgia and authenticity are evoked in telling family histories in order to negotiate change and create a continuous story of belonging. Three family histories demonstrate how material objects, places and claims of family resemblances are used to create both authentic identities and authentic selves belonging to the wider community. Where there is a break in the family story and the ‘world of restorable reach’ is no longer available nostalgia creeps in to replace personal stories with communal ones. Through using both nostalgia, to inform a sense of loss and sometimes a shared past, and authenticity, to create a sense of continuity within an overall arc of change, this article shows how family histories can work to maintain identities over time, retaining a sense of ontological security and belonging in place.

On Nostalgia and Courage: Russian Émigré Experience in Interwar Paris through the Eyes of Nadezhda Teffi

In the aftermath of the October Revolution and the civil war, many Russians immigrated to France. When they arrived in France, such newcomers brought with them a profound and deep sense of loss and nostalgia. Their universe crumbled with the Russian old regime, and the memories of pre-1917 Russia came to dominate the themes of the Russian émigré literature in the 1920s. Despite numerous material difficulties, the Russian émigrés produced a great deal of writing that included memoirs, diaries, accounts of the Great War, and fiction. This paper will analyse the discourse of nostalgia in the works produced by these émigrés; the novels and short stories written by four writers, Ivan Bunin (1870-1953), Nadezhda Teffi (1872-1952), Romain Gary (1914-1980), and Elsa Triolet (1896-1970) will be in the focus of the paper. This article will compare the different nuances and shades of interwar nostalgia. It will also suggest that through the writings of the second generation of Russian immigrants, the themes of nostalgia and mythmaking penetrated French literature and helped to create the mythology of French Belle Époque as a joyful moment.

Bengali-American Fiction in Immigrant Identity Work

In this article I focus on the reception and appropriation of three critically acclaimed, best-selling novels about Bengali-Americans by Bengali immigrants in the San Francisco Bay Area. The three novels are: Bharati Mukherjee’s Desirable Daughters (2002); Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s The Queen of Dreams (2004); and Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake (2004). Using data from interviews and participant observation, I argue that questions concerning the reception of ethnic literature are inextricably linked with the processes of adaptation and identification. This article seeks to contextualize fiction by Bengali-Americans in relation to the continually debated issue of multicultural politics in the USA. The novels provide immigrants with appealing themes of nostalgia, empowerment, dissonance and self-determination to construct an internal ethnic identity. Immigrants actively use these themes to reconcile apparently contradictory impulses and to draw boundaries that safeguard their class privilege, assuage gender inequality and avoid racialization.

SLAYING DRAGONS: MOHSIN HAMID DISCUSSES THE RELUCTANT FUNDAMENTALIST

The author reads from, discusses and responds to questions about his novel The Reluctant Fundamentalist, a narrative concerning the psychological consequences of the events of 9/11 for a young Pakistani man working in corporate America. Themes of nostalgia, alienation and distrust are explored, as well as the role that literature can play in sustaining ambivalence.

‘To Sir with Love’: A Critical Analysis of the Transnational Community Communicated through the Mail-Order Bride Industry

The clichéd notion that the United States of America is the power of authority has long been criticized by theorists. However, in such critical analyses, the gendered authority exerted by America is rarely discussed. The patriarchal presence that is continuously encouraged in mainstream culture can be traced to the center of this power of authority. This paper intends to examine how such an emphasis on American power was created and how this image is being communicated to the international community through the lucrative mail-order bride industry. In particular, this paper will analyze how the mail-order bride trade sets to profit from the Third World woman's culturally imperialistic vision of America while catering to the needs of the patriarchal First World male. In examining the mail-order bride industry's reliance on the theme of nostalgia, it will be shown that a profitable market has emerged as a result of catering to a culture that prioritizes the patriarchal male individual, rather than those deemed as minorities in today's western society.

Longing for Unconsciousness

In the following paper, I intend to approach certain aspects of excessive, or heavy, drinking in the Middle East (and elsewhere) from a mainly psychological point of view. This psychological approach is meant to be complementary to the historical approach adopted in many of the other contributions to our conference. Having said this, I may perhaps be excused for referring to scholars and authors not usually referred to at conferences sponsored by the ARAM Society for Syro-Mesopotamian Studies. But do not lose heart! In a more narrow sense, I aim at trying to understand a particular anecdote on heavy drinking in Kitāb adab al-ghurabā attributed to Abū l-Faraj al-Iṣbahānī and edited in English a couple of years ago by Patricia Crone and Shmuel Moreh under the title The Book of Strangers. Medieval Arabic Graffiti on the Theme of Nostalgia. Presently, I will return to this particular anecdote. But before doing so, a few words have to be said about nostalgia, strangers, unconsciousness vs. consciousness and the role intoxicating beverages may play in this connection. (Less)

The Book of Strangers. Medieval Arabic Graffiti on the Theme of Nostalgia. Attributed to Abu'l Faraj al-Isfahani

The Book of Strangers. Medieval Arabic Graffiti on the Theme of Nostalgia. Attributed to Abu'l Faraj al-Isfahani