The Promise of Nostalgia

The Promise of Nostalgia analyses a range of texts â including The Virgin Suicides both the novel by Jeffrey Eugenidesâ and Sofia Coppolaâs screen adaptation photography of Detroitâs âabandoned spacesâ and blogger Tavi Gevinson's media output â to explore nostalgia as a prominent affect in contemporary American cultural production. Counter to the prevalent caricature of nostalgia as anti-future the book proposes a more nuanced reading of its stakes and meanings. Instead of understanding it as evidence of the absence of utopia it contends that there is a masked utopian impulse in this nostalgia âmodeâ and critical potential in what has typically been dismissed as ideological. This book will be of interest to scholars graduate students and upper-level undergraduate students interested in contemporary culture cultural theory media studies the Frankfurt School utopian studies and American literature and culture. . Language: English