ABSTRACT
After discussing a number of classifications of and approaches to the phenomenon of nostalgia, the editors stake out their own position by providing a functional definition of the term and outlining the overall methodology of the volume. Nostalgia is defined as a discursive practice stemming from a (shared) feeling of loss and potentially serving any political agenda. The individual chapters focus on the working of nostalgia, its interaction with other forms of remembering and its (political) instrumentalization. The editors then introduce a further distinction that is vital to the entire volume: they differentiate between nostalgic sensibilities (feelings of longing) and nostalgic technologies (discursive techniques of nostalgia shaping a sense of connectedness to a past). Grouped in three different sections, the chapters in the volume are briefly discussed, as well as the tripartite structure itself. The section on “Affect” explores attitudes and emotional responses to “nostalgic triggers,” especially among marginalized groups; the section on “Appropriation” looks at instances of nostalgia where feelings of loss are co-opted by the state, or by actors sharing in its restorative rhetoric; finally, the section on “Contestation” investigates dissenting manifestations of nostalgia that challenge or subvert nostalgic discourses linked to state ideologies.
