Full Description
Drawing on the event of Queen Elizabeth II's death in 2022 as a central case study, this book explores the way we navigate the relationship between nostalgia and religion.
Focusing on the lived experiences of 'ordinary people' and in tandem with the 'turn to the self' discourse, Deacy suggests that our relationship with nostalgia illustrates the shift from objective and transcendent value-systems towards the domain of everyday experience, love and loss.
This book revisits the way we understand religion and the secular, using the medium of popular culture, such as radio, film, TV and music to interrogate the 'nostalgia-as-religion' narrative. The interpersonal and social elements of nostalgia are explored, such as through the way radio fostered virtual communities and played a key role regarding national, religious and cultural memory during the mourning of the Queen.
Attention is given to how nostalgia has evolved over time, and how it can be understood as a religious process which transforms our lives at a time of loss and contributes to an eschatological future.
Contents
Introduction: 'Turning to the self': Why Nostalgia and Religion?
1. Towards an Understanding of Nostalgia as Religion: The Interpersonal, Social and Secular Dimensions of Nostalgia
2-7. National Mourning, Religious and Secular Identities and Communities, and the Harnessing and Reframing of Nostalgia: Reporting the Death of Queen Elizabeth II on BBC Radio
8. Nostalgia, Music and Healing Narratives
9. Retro Salvations: Nostalgic and Wish-Fulfilment Fantasies and Healing Narratives in Film
10. Uncritical Religion and Never-Never Land: Nostophobia and the Reactionary Nature of Nostalgia
11. The Prelapsarian Past and the Utopian Future: Reframing Traditional Theological and Religious Perspectives on Nostalgia and Eschatology
Conclusion: Nostalgia as Religion: Religious Impulses and the Creative and Transformative Possibilities of Nostalgia
