Screened history

Nostalgia as defensive formation

Bibliographic Data

ID12438992
AuthorsDerek Hook (0000-0002-0446-4334, University of the Witwatersrand, corresponding author)
Year2012
Volume18
Issue3
Pages225-239
Publication date2012-08-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenuePeace and Conflict Journal of Peace Psychology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1078-1919 • E-ISSN: 1532-7949
PublisherAmerican Psychological Association (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1037/a0029071
OpenAlexW4241014210
LanguageEN
Citations received11
References cited11

This paper re-considers the much-lauded transformative potential of nostalgia, and proposes that an adequately psychological engagement with nostalgia is necessary if the critical capacities of this phenomenon are to be adequately assessed.In order to do this, the paper identifies parallels between the concept of nostalgia and a series of psychoanalytic concepts (the imaginary, fetishism, fantasy, affect, screen-memories and retroaction).Such a comparative analysis allows both for a critique of sociological notions of nostalgia and a series of speculations on how nostalgia as a defensive formation may aid rather than overcome types of structured forgetting.The use of psychoanalytic concepts enables us to grasp how nostalgia may operate: 1) in the economy of the ego, 2) in the mode of the fetish, 3) in the service of fantasy, 4) as an affect concealing anxiety, 5) as screen-memory and, 6) as means of reifying past or present rather than attending to relations of causation obtaining between past, present and future.One should thus investigate each of these possible defensive functions within any given instance of nostalgia before proclaiming its transformative potential

Aesthetics · Art · History · Narrative Theory and Analysis · Nostalgia and Consumer Behavior · Psychology · Social and Cultural Studies

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