The Routledge Handbook of Nostalgia serves as a guide to the complex and often contradictory concept of nostalgia, as well as the field of “nostalgia studies” more broadly.
Nostalgia is an area of intense interest across several disciplines as well as within society and culture more generally. This handbook brings together an international, interdisciplinary team of researchers to survey the current landscape and identify common trends, achievements and gaps in existing literature. Comprising forty-five chapters, the volume covers the following topics:
- Disciplinary perspectives of nostalgias including philosophy, history, literature, and psychology.
- Conceptual aspects of nostalgia including homesickness, temporality, affectivity, and memory.
- Historical and political dimensions such as afro-nostalgia, populism, feminism, and queer nostalgia.
- Spatial and material aspects of nostalgia including ruins, regionalism, and objects.
- Media related nostalgia such as analogue and digital nostalgia, reboots, revivals, gaming, and graphic novels.
Essential reading for students and researchers working in nostalgia studies, this book will also be beneficial to related disciplines such as philosophy, anthropology, geography, history and literature; cultural, media, heritage, museum and film studies courses; and more generally for readers interested in how the past is represented and used in the present.
1. Introduction
Tobias Becker and Dylan Trigg
Part One: Disciplines
2. Philosophy and Nostalgia
Dylan Trigg
3. Sociology and Nostalgia
Michael Hviid Jacobsen
4. History and Nostalgia
Tobias Becker
Constantine Sedikides and Tim Wildschut
Niklas Salmose and Eric Sandberg
7. Semiotics and Nostalgia
Mario Panico
8. Music and Nostalgia
Lola San Martin Arbide
9. Heritage Studies and Nostalgia
Svenja Hönig
10. Media Studies and Nostalgia
Mirjam Kappes and Manuel Menke
Part Two: Concepts
11. The Metaphysics of Nostalgia
Anja Berninger
12. Nostalgia and Homesickness
Susan J. Matt
13. Nostalgia and Time
Emily Hughes
14. Nostalgia and Affect
Michael D. Dwyer
15. Nostalgia and Wellbeing
Krystine Batcho
16. Nostalgia and Autobiographical Memory
Leonardo Massantini
17. Nostalgia and Childhood
Dylan Trigg
18. Nostalgia, Ageing and Older Way
Jessica Stanier
19. Hauntology
Grafton Tanner
20. Anthropocene Nostalgia
Niklas Salmose and Anna Ishchenko
21. Solastalgia
Katharina Niemeyer and Magali Uhl
Part Three: History and Politics
22. Medieval Nostalgia
Theo B. Lap
23. Indigenous Nostalgia
Martin Deuerlein
24. Afro-Nostalgia
Badia Ahad
25. White Supremacy and Nostalgia
Jesús Luzardo
26. Nostalgia and Populism
Ezgi Elçi
27. Post-Yugoslav Nostalgias
Tatjana Rosić Ilić and Goran Lazičić
28. Industrial Nostalgia and Working-Class Identity
Alfred Archer and Leonie Smith
29. Nostalgia and Feminism
Leyla Sophie Gleissner
30. Queer Nostalgia
Gilad Padva
31. Nostalgia Toward the Future
Lucia Santa Cruz
Part Four: Spaces, Materiality and Practices
32. Topology of Nostalgia
Stefan W. Schmidt
33. Nostalgia and Regionalism
Adam Ochonicky
34. Old South Plantation Nostalgia
David Anderson
35. Nostalgia and Ruins
Zoltán Somhegyi
36. Appliance Nostalgia
Rachele Dini
37. Wistful Objects
Robert Seddon
38. Keepsakes
Mark Windsor
Part Five: Media and Genre
39. Analogue Nostalgia
Dominik Schrey
40. Digital Nostalgias
Katharina Niemeyer
41. The Functions of Contemporary Mediated Nostalgia
Ryan Lizardi
42. Reboots and Revivals
Kathleen Loock
43. Diasporic Nostalgia in Indian Cinema
Sony Jalarajan Raj and Adith K. Suresh
44. Retro Gaming
Jacob Birken
45. Nostalgia in Comics and Graphic Novels
Giorgio Busi Rizzi
Biography
Tobias Becker is a Visiting Professor of Modern History at Freie Universität Berlin. He has published widely on the history of popular culture and nostalgia. His most recent books include Popular Culture in Western Europe since 1800: A Student‘s Guide (2023) and Yesterday: A New History of Nostalgia (2023).
Dylan Trigg is an Austrian Science Fund Senior Researcher at the University of Vienna, Department of Philosophy. He works on phenomenology, aesthetics, and the philosophy of emotion. Recent books include Topophobia: a Phenomenology of Anxiety (2016) and the edited collection Atmospheres and Shared Emotions (2022).
