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The Future of Nostalgia
Combining personal memoir, philosophical essay, and historical analysis, Svetlana Boym explores the spaces of collective nostalgia that connect national biography and personal self-fashioning in the twenty-first century. She guides us through the ruins and construction sites of post-communist cities--St. Petersburg, Moscow, Berlin, and Prague--and the imagined homelands of exiles-Benjamin, Nabokov, Mandelstahm, and Brodsky. From Jurassic Park to the Totalitarian Sculpture Garden, Boym unravels the threads of this global epidemic of longing and its antidotes.
432 pages, Paperback
First published March 21, 2001
About the author
Svetlana Boym
28 books88 followersSvetlana Boym is the Curt Hugo Reisinger Professor of Slavic and Comparative Literatures at Harvard University, and a media artist, playwright, and novelist. She is also an associate of the Graduate School of Design and Architecture at Harvard University.
Boym's written work explores relationships between utopia and kitsch, between memory and modernity, and between homesickness and sickness of home. Her research interests generally include 20th century Russian literature, cultural studies, comparative literature and literary studies.
Source: Wikipedia
Obit
https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog...
Boym's written work explores relationships between utopia and kitsch, between memory and modernity, and between homesickness and sickness of home. Her research interests generally include 20th century Russian literature, cultural studies, comparative literature and literary studies.
Source: Wikipedia
Obit
https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 56 reviews
March 9, 2024
This is an excellent book. I like reading it for its style. I give it 5 stars for its scholarship. I disliked it for its politics, that in a very subtle way embraces Trumpism ( in a Harvard style)).
However, I am not sure of its content and the kind of politics the book backs. She writes about nostalgia in great detail. This makes the book an interesting read. What irritates me is that she writes about certain specific nostalgias. As if nostalgia is something that only happens to immigrants– to certain types of immigrants, of a certain period. In the context of America, for instance, she mentions first and second wave migrants and states how the second generations seek their roots (unfettered by Visa restrictions). While this makes sense in a European context, the term first wave immigrants is ironical in regards to America. Who is not an immigrant in America?
So she applies nostalgia and its very nuanced theories to certain types– so the knowledge around nostalgia is constructed through very specific kinds of immigrant experience. For instance, nostalgia is not something that has ever bothered immigrants from Scandinavia and Great Britain to America. She is more interested in the world from 1960 onwards. Though she talks about Russia and its (white)authors, the nostalgia theory only seems to fix the undesirable (coloured) immigrants. Of course it is not stated in the book as thus. However, this dimension runs throughout the book– right from its exciting Introduction.
In the age that seeks death of democracy and deglobalization (because globalization cannot give more, and the west does not like a monster like China.) This book embraces the contemporary politics, or rather spawns it. It is this that I did not like about the book–her politics. Very carefully couched in nostalgia theory that objectified and used only certain people, groups, and communities.
However, I am not sure of its content and the kind of politics the book backs. She writes about nostalgia in great detail. This makes the book an interesting read. What irritates me is that she writes about certain specific nostalgias. As if nostalgia is something that only happens to immigrants– to certain types of immigrants, of a certain period. In the context of America, for instance, she mentions first and second wave migrants and states how the second generations seek their roots (unfettered by Visa restrictions). While this makes sense in a European context, the term first wave immigrants is ironical in regards to America. Who is not an immigrant in America?
So she applies nostalgia and its very nuanced theories to certain types– so the knowledge around nostalgia is constructed through very specific kinds of immigrant experience. For instance, nostalgia is not something that has ever bothered immigrants from Scandinavia and Great Britain to America. She is more interested in the world from 1960 onwards. Though she talks about Russia and its (white)authors, the nostalgia theory only seems to fix the undesirable (coloured) immigrants. Of course it is not stated in the book as thus. However, this dimension runs throughout the book– right from its exciting Introduction.
In the age that seeks death of democracy and deglobalization (because globalization cannot give more, and the west does not like a monster like China.) This book embraces the contemporary politics, or rather spawns it. It is this that I did not like about the book–her politics. Very carefully couched in nostalgia theory that objectified and used only certain people, groups, and communities.
March 5, 2008
This is going to break you brains this one. I have to read a page and then think, and then read a page, and then stare into space and contemplate some shit. Anyone who quotes Walter Benjamin, and Donald Winnicott in the same book should get a star. You know how awesome theories and musings on nostalgia are? Pretty fucking awesome.
September 16, 2020
I want to write books like this. Basically.
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November 8, 2021bazı kitaplar sayesinde bazı yerleri görmüş, bazı yazarları okumuş, bazı insanları tanımış gibi oluruz; bazılarınaysa sürekli o şehirleri görmemiş, o yazarları okumamış ve o insanların adını bile duymamış olmaktan kaynaklanan eksiklik hissi eşlik eder, çünkü o şehirleri gördüğümüz, o yazarları okuduğumuz, o insanları da bir şekilde duyduğumuz varsayılarak yazılmıştır. böyle genellemek mantıklı oldu mu bilmiyorum, ama nostaljinin geleceği ikinci türdendi. bu yüzden şehirlere ve yazarlara dair bazı kısımları atlaya atlaya okudum. ama nostaljinin tarihi, eski avrupa, rusya ve abd'nin nostaljiyle ilişkileri, yazarın düşünsel ve yeniden kurucu olarak ayırdığı nostalji türlerine dair anlattıkları, diaspora mekanının kurulumu ve göçmenlerin hatıra eşyalara bakışı ile ilgili kısımları okurken büyük keyif aldım.
February 3, 2024
Svetlana Boym (1959 – 2015) fue una experta en literaturas eslavas nacida en San Petersburgo que desarrolló carrera en Harvard, y que se interesó por la nostalgia no como enfermedad individual, sino como una emoción histórica, como síntoma de nuestra era: “Añoro, luego existo”.
Siempre desde una perspectiva de rusa exiliada, en la primera parte del ensayo traza la historia de la nostalgia como afección incurable, presentándola como restauradora o reflexiva. En la segunda parte se centra en las ciudades y los recuerdos poscomunistas, viajando a Moscú, San Petersburgo y Berlín, y en la tercera parte analiza las patrias imaginarias de los exiliados Nabokov, Brodsky y Kabakov, que nunca regresaron a sus países.
Al ser un libro publicado en el año 2000, incide en la transformación económica y social que se produjo en Rusia solamente hasta los años noventa. En cualquier caso, es muy recomendable para los interesados en descubrir la Rusia postsoviética, uno de los lugares más controvertidos, emocionantes y contradictorios del mundo, en el que la libertad radical, lo imprevisible y la experimentación social coexistían con el fatalismo, con el renacimiento de la religión y de los valores tradicionales.
El hogar, a fin de cuentas, no es una comunidad de la no se puede escapar. Puede que el paraíso en la Tierra no sea más que otra aldea Potemkin sin salida.
Siempre desde una perspectiva de rusa exiliada, en la primera parte del ensayo traza la historia de la nostalgia como afección incurable, presentándola como restauradora o reflexiva. En la segunda parte se centra en las ciudades y los recuerdos poscomunistas, viajando a Moscú, San Petersburgo y Berlín, y en la tercera parte analiza las patrias imaginarias de los exiliados Nabokov, Brodsky y Kabakov, que nunca regresaron a sus países.
Al ser un libro publicado en el año 2000, incide en la transformación económica y social que se produjo en Rusia solamente hasta los años noventa. En cualquier caso, es muy recomendable para los interesados en descubrir la Rusia postsoviética, uno de los lugares más controvertidos, emocionantes y contradictorios del mundo, en el que la libertad radical, lo imprevisible y la experimentación social coexistían con el fatalismo, con el renacimiento de la religión y de los valores tradicionales.
El hogar, a fin de cuentas, no es una comunidad de la no se puede escapar. Puede que el paraíso en la Tierra no sea más que otra aldea Potemkin sin salida.
August 16, 2009
A whole book devoted to the idea of nostalgia, what it is and how it works in our world. Reminds me a lot of the philosophy/criticism of Walter Benjamin. Not literary criticism per se, but profound and questioning criticism that covers the waterfront. It recalled to me wonderful books like Time and the Art of Living by robert Grudin, Shklovsky and even a bit of Sebald. A look at culture in a way Americans usually aren't exposed to it, not for academics but for anyone interested in looking at our world in a slightly different way--estrangement, the Shklovsky futurist tool.
October 12, 2021
много потрясающих книг в одной!
есть ощущение, что мне не хватает ни фундаментальных знаний, ни интеллектуальной мощи для того, чтобы полноценно оценить экстраординарную работу, проделанную Бойм. но я под сильным впечатлением и в восторге.
есть ощущение, что мне не хватает ни фундаментальных знаний, ни интеллектуальной мощи для того, чтобы полноценно оценить экстраординарную работу, проделанную Бойм. но я под сильным впечатлением и в восторге.
July 30, 2020
Muy bueno, sobre todo su primera parte en la que la autora aporta su marco teórico. De especial interés me han resultado sus conceptos de nostalgia restauradora y nostalgia reflexiva, ideas heredadas de Walter Benjamin que ilustran a la perfección las dos vías de relación emocional que establecemos con nuestro pasado tanto individual como colectivo. Un gran libro ameno y estimulante.
May 25, 2020
I'm in love with this woman!
I'll continue to return to this book many times in this life.
I'll continue to return to this book many times in this life.
April 26, 2018
I absolutely loved the opening chapters, as well as the other (rather occasional) sections that engage directly with the question of locating and theorizing nostalgia. But as an impatient reader coming to the book without an overwhelming interest in the histories of specific Russian and European cities, the very lengthy chapters that narrated the social and cultural histories of St. Petersburg, Moscow, Berlin and Prague were a bit much, and I ended up skimming quite a few sections. Nevertheless, Boym's acerbic writing is superb, and her wide-ranging interests and always-insightful reflections on questions of culture and politics are hugely impressive.
July 9, 2020
First 40 pages: every artist should read this to better understand their relationship to their individual and collective past.
The general concept of nostalgia is a feeling of longing (desire) for the past. Furthermore as Boym drives home, the articulation of this concept is rooted in the observation of homesickness of Swiss soldiers, who when away at war strongly desired to be back home hanging out in the Alps (wouldn't you?)
So nostalgia historically is a kind of homesickness, as Boym sees it, and it occurs when one is far away from ones home. Then she begins to talk about the nostalgia observed of immigrants and the nostalgia of current generations for the past.
She demarcates nostalgia into "restorative" and "reflective" types. Restorative nostalgia more or less can be best exemplified by "Make America Great Again" (for whom?), but unfortunately the author did not live long enough to witness the waves of nostalgia surging in the US before and during the Trump administration (and our own nostalgia for basically anything remotely normal in the time of the current pandemic, which undoubtedly pushed me to seek out more info on nostalgia and why I have been experiencing it so much lately. Restorative nostalgia basically looks at the past through rose-colored glasses and, if I wasn't clear about this, is really dangerous to society. It is a kind of forgetting about the real past and a clinging to an idealized image of the past. Boym talks about this far more in depth through her history of ruins and monuments in Russia from the time of Perestroika (roughly the fall of the Soviet Union) onward. Restorative nostalgia also to elicit reconstruction and restoration.
I really wish Boym spent more time on Reflective Nostalgia, because I think there is a lot more there, otherwise her dichotomy is weak and nostalgia is much more dangerous than it is. What I took away from reading this was that reflective nostalgia longs for the past but with a critical eye. Reflective nostalgia leaves ruins as they are and says "look at what was built and destroyed, let's look at this with a critical eye." But what she doesn't seem to examine is how earth can one experience longing in reflective nostalgia?
Pages 40-100: meh. The digression about dinosaurs and american pre-history was kind of a pointless tangent and I'm not sure all that useful in her argument, it seemed forced in the kind of way that if somebody asked you: what do dinosaurs have to do with american nostalgia? this is the best thing you could come up with. The rest of the book (until I gave up): a history lesson, WAY too much detail unless you are interested in Soviet history. In some ways this perhaps is Boym's own exercise in reflective nostalgia.
I have been guilt tripping trying to finish this (I rarely stop reading books without guilt), but this may be one I need to put down, but in general this is some dry-ass academic writing. I like the restorative/reflective dichotomy discussion of nostalgia but I think Boyms nostalgia is of a very particular kind related to her experience of nostalgia as an immigrant to the US. I think there is more to unpack here re: homesickness and longing for youth which is where a lot of my own (and art’s) nostalgia lies, not in the ruins of Stalingrad or whatever. I carried on with the Russian history for fifty pages but I had to put this down. Interesting take on what nostalgia is but I think Boym (rip) got only one angle on the topic, albeit a sharp one.
I think there is a lot more here to nostalgia particularly when it comes to music and music production, and perhaps this work motivated me to do some of my own writing on this topic. I think it's a rich one and especially relevant. The phenomenon of retro music is nothing new but the vaporwave genre and the use of VHS and cassette sounds, cheesy synthesizers, samples, etc. for emotional effects is an interesting thing to explore, especially when it's not even clear that many of the vaporwave producers were even alive during the VHS boom.
But I digress. There's definitely food for thought here, and I think the more historically and politically minded readers will have more to take away from this, particularly in the discussion of monuments, which has become extremely relevant in recent times due to the destruction of many statues in the US and around the world. The pandemic has forced us to be with ourselves, and when our experience turns inward the past comes back to haunt us, or sometimes to greet us like a old friend.
The general concept of nostalgia is a feeling of longing (desire) for the past. Furthermore as Boym drives home, the articulation of this concept is rooted in the observation of homesickness of Swiss soldiers, who when away at war strongly desired to be back home hanging out in the Alps (wouldn't you?)
So nostalgia historically is a kind of homesickness, as Boym sees it, and it occurs when one is far away from ones home. Then she begins to talk about the nostalgia observed of immigrants and the nostalgia of current generations for the past.
She demarcates nostalgia into "restorative" and "reflective" types. Restorative nostalgia more or less can be best exemplified by "Make America Great Again" (for whom?), but unfortunately the author did not live long enough to witness the waves of nostalgia surging in the US before and during the Trump administration (and our own nostalgia for basically anything remotely normal in the time of the current pandemic, which undoubtedly pushed me to seek out more info on nostalgia and why I have been experiencing it so much lately. Restorative nostalgia basically looks at the past through rose-colored glasses and, if I wasn't clear about this, is really dangerous to society. It is a kind of forgetting about the real past and a clinging to an idealized image of the past. Boym talks about this far more in depth through her history of ruins and monuments in Russia from the time of Perestroika (roughly the fall of the Soviet Union) onward. Restorative nostalgia also to elicit reconstruction and restoration.
I really wish Boym spent more time on Reflective Nostalgia, because I think there is a lot more there, otherwise her dichotomy is weak and nostalgia is much more dangerous than it is. What I took away from reading this was that reflective nostalgia longs for the past but with a critical eye. Reflective nostalgia leaves ruins as they are and says "look at what was built and destroyed, let's look at this with a critical eye." But what she doesn't seem to examine is how earth can one experience longing in reflective nostalgia?
Pages 40-100: meh. The digression about dinosaurs and american pre-history was kind of a pointless tangent and I'm not sure all that useful in her argument, it seemed forced in the kind of way that if somebody asked you: what do dinosaurs have to do with american nostalgia? this is the best thing you could come up with. The rest of the book (until I gave up): a history lesson, WAY too much detail unless you are interested in Soviet history. In some ways this perhaps is Boym's own exercise in reflective nostalgia.
I have been guilt tripping trying to finish this (I rarely stop reading books without guilt), but this may be one I need to put down, but in general this is some dry-ass academic writing. I like the restorative/reflective dichotomy discussion of nostalgia but I think Boyms nostalgia is of a very particular kind related to her experience of nostalgia as an immigrant to the US. I think there is more to unpack here re: homesickness and longing for youth which is where a lot of my own (and art’s) nostalgia lies, not in the ruins of Stalingrad or whatever. I carried on with the Russian history for fifty pages but I had to put this down. Interesting take on what nostalgia is but I think Boym (rip) got only one angle on the topic, albeit a sharp one.
I think there is a lot more here to nostalgia particularly when it comes to music and music production, and perhaps this work motivated me to do some of my own writing on this topic. I think it's a rich one and especially relevant. The phenomenon of retro music is nothing new but the vaporwave genre and the use of VHS and cassette sounds, cheesy synthesizers, samples, etc. for emotional effects is an interesting thing to explore, especially when it's not even clear that many of the vaporwave producers were even alive during the VHS boom.
But I digress. There's definitely food for thought here, and I think the more historically and politically minded readers will have more to take away from this, particularly in the discussion of monuments, which has become extremely relevant in recent times due to the destruction of many statues in the US and around the world. The pandemic has forced us to be with ourselves, and when our experience turns inward the past comes back to haunt us, or sometimes to greet us like a old friend.
March 27, 2021
I am being reminded how comforting it is to read Eastern European authors, how close to home their words hit, and how organic their experiences feel. I am being reminded that there is an unbridgeable gap between me and Western writers; but for the first time, it doesn't feel awkward or othering, it feels like coming home.
Although there's a big part of The Future of Nostalgia that I didn't find particularly interesting (and I have to admit to having skipped certain chapters), Boym's essays resonated with me on a very personal level. There must be an undercurrent of post-soviet sadness that transcends all kinds of space-time boundaries, that is inherited from past generations, and that makes this book so impactful to me. The mere act of reading this book is nostalgia-inducing. It made me hyper-aware of my homeland, of the transience of it all. And I am so glad for it.
Although there's a big part of The Future of Nostalgia that I didn't find particularly interesting (and I have to admit to having skipped certain chapters), Boym's essays resonated with me on a very personal level. There must be an undercurrent of post-soviet sadness that transcends all kinds of space-time boundaries, that is inherited from past generations, and that makes this book so impactful to me. The mere act of reading this book is nostalgia-inducing. It made me hyper-aware of my homeland, of the transience of it all. And I am so glad for it.
One becomes aware of the collective frameworks of memory when one distances oneself from one's community or when that community itself enters the moment of twilight. Collective frameworks of memory are rediscovered in mourning.
March 7, 2017
Just started reading, but it's kind of amazing already. seeing as I am the most pathetically nostalgic person I have to listen to in my head all day, this turns me on:
"Tracing the history of 'hypochondria of the heart' from a passing ailment to incurable modern condition, Svetlana Boym has achieved nothing less than a new area of inquiry, a new typology, the identification of a new aesthetic: the study of nostalgia. She guides us through the ruins and construction sites of post-communist cities such as St. Petersburg, Moscow and Berlin to explore the imagined homelands of writers and artists like Nabokov, Brodsky and Nabakov and examines the souvenir collections of ordinary immigrants. In short, Bym has written a new kin of encyclopedic meditation that captures the mysteries and rhythms of longing, a calendar that schedules out of time daydreaming and a treatise that diagnoses our global epidemic of longing and its antidotes"
It's full of drivel, but it is highly beautiful to read.
"Tracing the history of 'hypochondria of the heart' from a passing ailment to incurable modern condition, Svetlana Boym has achieved nothing less than a new area of inquiry, a new typology, the identification of a new aesthetic: the study of nostalgia. She guides us through the ruins and construction sites of post-communist cities such as St. Petersburg, Moscow and Berlin to explore the imagined homelands of writers and artists like Nabokov, Brodsky and Nabakov and examines the souvenir collections of ordinary immigrants. In short, Bym has written a new kin of encyclopedic meditation that captures the mysteries and rhythms of longing, a calendar that schedules out of time daydreaming and a treatise that diagnoses our global epidemic of longing and its antidotes"
It's full of drivel, but it is highly beautiful to read.
July 6, 2017
Wonderful book. I particularly liked chapter 5 and the concluding chapter.
I love this passage. It is so true about our need to slow down:
"The extreme version of the eliminational model of progress (which believes, for example, that the e-book will supplant the book altogether rather than that the two can happily cohabit in the same household) presents a kind of tunnel vision of the road toward the future. It presumes that there is no environment around that tunnel, no context, no other streets and avenues that take a detour from the underground speed lanes and traffic jams. Reflective nostalgia challenges this tunnel vision, backtracking, slowing down, looking sideways, meditating on the journey itself."
I love this passage. It is so true about our need to slow down:
"The extreme version of the eliminational model of progress (which believes, for example, that the e-book will supplant the book altogether rather than that the two can happily cohabit in the same household) presents a kind of tunnel vision of the road toward the future. It presumes that there is no environment around that tunnel, no context, no other streets and avenues that take a detour from the underground speed lanes and traffic jams. Reflective nostalgia challenges this tunnel vision, backtracking, slowing down, looking sideways, meditating on the journey itself."
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October 26, 2022I'm not giving it a rating because I skipped huge chunks that were not relevant to my research.
That being said, what I did read was really interesting. Boym has a charming (if not sometimes overly cutesy) writing style. Her writing is insightful, but at times she injects extra sentences that are more whimsy than anything else.
Still, Boym's book is interesting in its exploration of the ways we create vessels of nostalgia and process it. For instance, that nostalgia feigns apoliticality but then becomes a weapon used by politicians. (To quote from Aaron Sorkin's movie, The American President, "You get a group of middle age, middle income voters in a room and you remind them about an easier time, you talk about family, and you say she [a political activist character] is the one to blame for their problems. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you win elections.") Or how long gone and extinct entities, such as dinosaurs, are the ultimate nostalgic fixation, because we cannot truly get them wrong in our imaginings because we cannot know exactly what they look like. (And we get this awesome sentence: "The dinosaur is America’s unicorn, the mythical animal of Nature’s Nation” (33).)
So if you have any interest in the topic, then this book is very enlightening. Also, it's extremely accessible – anyone with an interest in the topic should be able to parse it out fairly easily.
That being said, what I did read was really interesting. Boym has a charming (if not sometimes overly cutesy) writing style. Her writing is insightful, but at times she injects extra sentences that are more whimsy than anything else.
Still, Boym's book is interesting in its exploration of the ways we create vessels of nostalgia and process it. For instance, that nostalgia feigns apoliticality but then becomes a weapon used by politicians. (To quote from Aaron Sorkin's movie, The American President, "You get a group of middle age, middle income voters in a room and you remind them about an easier time, you talk about family, and you say she [a political activist character] is the one to blame for their problems. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you win elections.") Or how long gone and extinct entities, such as dinosaurs, are the ultimate nostalgic fixation, because we cannot truly get them wrong in our imaginings because we cannot know exactly what they look like. (And we get this awesome sentence: "The dinosaur is America’s unicorn, the mythical animal of Nature’s Nation” (33).)
So if you have any interest in the topic, then this book is very enlightening. Also, it's extremely accessible – anyone with an interest in the topic should be able to parse it out fairly easily.
December 30, 2019
Svetlana's humble/good observations make reader to dip into texts seperately. As time (Kant; in our world it is not already), nostalgic feelings are personal as well. So as long as we have persistence of memory (Dali), we will have a sadomasochist (suffering/enjoyment) relationship with nostalgia at its purest.
June 16, 2023
I have been reading this book, off and on, for almost a year and a half–in some sense, it feels simply like a relief to have finished it. I know this is a text I will return to again and again, and I already feel that in the time it has rattled around in my brain, it has influenced my thinking significantly. I preferred the outer edges of the book to the geographically focused center, which was at times difficult for me to connect with. At the same time, I find Boym's geographic interrogations of nostalgia to be some of her strongest stretches in the book. A worthwhile read for anyone interested in nostalgia, longing, sentimentality, and the modern meaning of 'home.'
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May 25, 2020Not rating as this was another PhD read - super interesting and felt quite appropriate with everyone experiencing nostalgia due to lockdown at the moment
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September 11, 2023FINALLY done.
first part (hypochondria of the heart: nostalgia, history and memory) remains one of the most gripping/pertinent things i’ve read. and then it falls off, simply because i find Boym to be lacking as an urbanist and a literary critic.
first part (hypochondria of the heart: nostalgia, history and memory) remains one of the most gripping/pertinent things i’ve read. and then it falls off, simply because i find Boym to be lacking as an urbanist and a literary critic.
February 8, 2016
The Future of Nostalgia (2001) este o carte-melanj, o lectură-maraton de 400 și ceva de pagini, care îmbină memoriile personale cu istoria, filosofia și studiile culturale, având miza de a revela resorturile nostalgiei în memoria colectivă a țărilor foste comuniste. Autoarea face un periplu de-a lungul orașelor-centru ale comunismului — Sankt-Petersburg, Moscova, Berlin și Praga — fotografiind și descriind relicvele unui regim totalitar mort și explicând cauzele existenței unei nostalgii după viața în comunism. pe alocuri, Uneori, m-am împiedicat în rânduri, pagini întregi chiar, cu alură pregnant teoretică, însă, acestea odată depășite, The Future of Nostalgia devine o carte foarte user-friendly, care-și transferă ideile către cititor într-un limbaj accesibil și precis. Iar anecdotele, imaginile și amintirile autoarei, presărate de-a lungul cărții, înlesnesc cu atât mai mult parcurgerea celor 400 de pagini ale sale.
Recenzia completa aici: http://iuliacampeanu.onezone.ro/the-f...
Recenzia completa aici: http://iuliacampeanu.onezone.ro/the-f...
March 22, 2021
If I could only read one book in my lifetime, this would be the one. Suddenly, everything I have ever known, thought and felt makes sense.
This is a brilliant study of the phenomenon of nostalgia and, in large part, the human condition altogether.
This is a brilliant study of the phenomenon of nostalgia and, in large part, the human condition altogether.
February 20, 2012
Absolutely brilliant.
April 7, 2020
Interesting theoretical work but too reflexively/automatically antagonistic towards popular culture.
April 23, 2020
Unless you're very interested in Russian history I'd take a pass on this book, other than the marvelous introduction.
December 6, 2020
Like the ideas of restorative nostalgia and reflective nostalgia, but somewhat vague on a few ideas in the book. Enjoyed it.
January 25, 2024
Beginning her discourse on nostalgia, Boym divides the experience/state/response/emotion into two types, restorative and reflective. Essentially, restorative nostalgia operates in a reactionary sort of way, imposing an imagined ideology of the past and incorporating it into monumental expressions of that past. Reflective nostalgia, on the other hand, is small and individual in scale, often a pastiche of past or imagined past experiences, and geared towards a more creative future, especially as it values "irony," "fun," "play," and "experimentation." Of course, putting that last string of words in quotation marks violates Boym's claims in a substantial way. For she is adamant in declaring that nostalgia is attached to modernity and modernization as it is a response to that condition and not a foray into postmodernism. The problem is that her descriptions of course amount to all the ingredients of the postmodern experience. She is caught in this divide and it shows even in how she expresses the form and content of the book.
For The Future of Nostalgia is itself a pastiche. Following its somewhat theoretical introduction, it moves on to the author's experiences in Moscow and St. Petersburg. She writes in 2000 and is looking back over the events since 1989. These chapters in Russia combine a practical guide to the "errors" of restorative nostalgia along with being a fascinating bit of travel writing. Next she moves to Berlin, where the commentary moves more toward architectural criticism, in particular regarding the situation of Jewish monuments and restorations. A trip into Central Europe focuses on film criticism, especially on emigre filmmakers.
Her next sections then explore works she considers reflective, including literary criticism of the works of Nobokov and Brodsky and art criticism of Kabakov's installations. Over the three you can see a morphing into postmodern concerns and forms. These are Boym's preferred expressions of nostalgia, especially as it effects immigrants and people who escaped the Soviet Union in the 1970s and 1980s, of whom Boym of course is one. "Exilic" (I like that word) experiences combine with fear and desire of nostalgia to keep those it "afflicts" in a borderland or transitory state, from which they can never escape. It is both a prod for genius and a poison for despair.
I like Boym's writing style. And I especially enjoyed her use of tangible objects and texts to illustrate her theoretical notions. It's absolutely enlightening. The book does become more severe as goes along, however, perhaps because the author describes a situation which really can't last. And it didn't. That chaotic, relatively free world of Central and Eastern Europe of the 1990s today looks like a closed down carnival turned into a tent show of doctrinaire political authoritarianism. Boym herself died in 2015, but had enough insight I think to acknowledge how things would turn out. Her few references to Putin indicate she had the measure of the man and what he would bring. And so he did. The post-communist Eastern Europe of 30 to 35 years ago that Boym describes simply vanished. In its place? Perhaps a new set of inspirations for nostalgia as it should have been.
For The Future of Nostalgia is itself a pastiche. Following its somewhat theoretical introduction, it moves on to the author's experiences in Moscow and St. Petersburg. She writes in 2000 and is looking back over the events since 1989. These chapters in Russia combine a practical guide to the "errors" of restorative nostalgia along with being a fascinating bit of travel writing. Next she moves to Berlin, where the commentary moves more toward architectural criticism, in particular regarding the situation of Jewish monuments and restorations. A trip into Central Europe focuses on film criticism, especially on emigre filmmakers.
Her next sections then explore works she considers reflective, including literary criticism of the works of Nobokov and Brodsky and art criticism of Kabakov's installations. Over the three you can see a morphing into postmodern concerns and forms. These are Boym's preferred expressions of nostalgia, especially as it effects immigrants and people who escaped the Soviet Union in the 1970s and 1980s, of whom Boym of course is one. "Exilic" (I like that word) experiences combine with fear and desire of nostalgia to keep those it "afflicts" in a borderland or transitory state, from which they can never escape. It is both a prod for genius and a poison for despair.
I like Boym's writing style. And I especially enjoyed her use of tangible objects and texts to illustrate her theoretical notions. It's absolutely enlightening. The book does become more severe as goes along, however, perhaps because the author describes a situation which really can't last. And it didn't. That chaotic, relatively free world of Central and Eastern Europe of the 1990s today looks like a closed down carnival turned into a tent show of doctrinaire political authoritarianism. Boym herself died in 2015, but had enough insight I think to acknowledge how things would turn out. Her few references to Putin indicate she had the measure of the man and what he would bring. And so he did. The post-communist Eastern Europe of 30 to 35 years ago that Boym describes simply vanished. In its place? Perhaps a new set of inspirations for nostalgia as it should have been.
March 31, 2022
Nostalgia, the ache for the past, either real or imagined, has been with us for a long time now. As the world becomes ever-more interconnected and homogenized, the yearning for some idyllic bygone era seems to grow ever stronger. From whence does this impulse spring, and is it healthy, or somehow delusional and solipsistic, or perhaps even dangerous?
Svetlana Boym probes the meaning, the joys, and potential dangers of nostalgia in this overlong, sometimes dense, sometimes pretentious, occasionally brilliant book-length work. Her focus on nostalgia is not the personal ephemera we all tend to hoard (record sleeves, old comic books, wooden antiques) but rather the collective longing for places, as large as countries and as small as patches of land.
She displays a strong continental bias (mentioning America only in passing, and then mostly to sneer at the American habit of conflating kitsch with nostalgia). Her main focus seems to be Petersburg, which makes sense, when you consider that a) it was her home, and b) its constant renaming reveals that it is most assuredly a hotly contested site of memory and meaning.
Chapters range from a few pages to sections dense enough to serve as a week's worth of reading in a postgraduate elective. The most interesting sections, especially those dealing with immigrants recreating little shrines to their native lands, seemed to be the shortest. Those sections that deal with the macro—hulking East German edifices and even the Berlin Wall—seem to take up a lot more space, and provide a lot less intimacy in their understanding of nostalgia.
A couple of sections on postmodern installation art seemed tangential to the theme of nostalgia (and that's being generous). If a guy can convince a grant counsel that putting a toilet on display is art, I won't begrudge him whatever juice he can squeeze out of the sinecure, but I don't want to read about it. Also, while Boym's writing style is not rife for parody, a la the worst offerings by the poststructuralists or interwar social theorists, she sometimes gets lost in echolalic babbling, playing with the sounds of words and free-associating. It might have been fun hammering the keys, but it wasn't always fun to read.
That said, there are times where uncommon insights flash to life in the otherwise prolix writing. The contrast between the culturally revanchist Moscow and the more open St. Petersburg was especially illuminating, as were the sections on the bittersweet (and sometimes simply bitter) experiences of exiles like Vladimir Nabokov. With photos.
Svetlana Boym probes the meaning, the joys, and potential dangers of nostalgia in this overlong, sometimes dense, sometimes pretentious, occasionally brilliant book-length work. Her focus on nostalgia is not the personal ephemera we all tend to hoard (record sleeves, old comic books, wooden antiques) but rather the collective longing for places, as large as countries and as small as patches of land.
She displays a strong continental bias (mentioning America only in passing, and then mostly to sneer at the American habit of conflating kitsch with nostalgia). Her main focus seems to be Petersburg, which makes sense, when you consider that a) it was her home, and b) its constant renaming reveals that it is most assuredly a hotly contested site of memory and meaning.
Chapters range from a few pages to sections dense enough to serve as a week's worth of reading in a postgraduate elective. The most interesting sections, especially those dealing with immigrants recreating little shrines to their native lands, seemed to be the shortest. Those sections that deal with the macro—hulking East German edifices and even the Berlin Wall—seem to take up a lot more space, and provide a lot less intimacy in their understanding of nostalgia.
A couple of sections on postmodern installation art seemed tangential to the theme of nostalgia (and that's being generous). If a guy can convince a grant counsel that putting a toilet on display is art, I won't begrudge him whatever juice he can squeeze out of the sinecure, but I don't want to read about it. Also, while Boym's writing style is not rife for parody, a la the worst offerings by the poststructuralists or interwar social theorists, she sometimes gets lost in echolalic babbling, playing with the sounds of words and free-associating. It might have been fun hammering the keys, but it wasn't always fun to read.
That said, there are times where uncommon insights flash to life in the otherwise prolix writing. The contrast between the culturally revanchist Moscow and the more open St. Petersburg was especially illuminating, as were the sections on the bittersweet (and sometimes simply bitter) experiences of exiles like Vladimir Nabokov. With photos.
February 27, 2023
When I first discovered this book, I was excited and expected to absolutely love it. While reading it I realized it wasn't quite what I had anticipated, with a heavy focus on the lives and works of various Russian artists who had become disconnected from their homes. Some of the chapters felt tedious and uninteresting, with geographic and topical excursions that didn't particularly resonate with me.
But Blom is a fountain of historical and cultural knowledge and her ability to weave together various strains of it to put forth compelling ideas is impressive. The book is now more than twenty years old and it's difficult not to read it without thinking about all the changes that have come to pass in post-Soviet Russia since then. It's not a book a feel truly awestruck with, but I'm always grateful for this kind of idiosyncratic work that defies categorization and exposes us to peculiar ways of taking stock of our world that may not be so in vogue these days.
But Blom is a fountain of historical and cultural knowledge and her ability to weave together various strains of it to put forth compelling ideas is impressive. The book is now more than twenty years old and it's difficult not to read it without thinking about all the changes that have come to pass in post-Soviet Russia since then. It's not a book a feel truly awestruck with, but I'm always grateful for this kind of idiosyncratic work that defies categorization and exposes us to peculiar ways of taking stock of our world that may not be so in vogue these days.
March 20, 2023
Di con este título en una increíble crisis de “morriña” y ciertamente me ha ayudado a controlar y entender mejor este sentimiento tan particular. Su aportación al estudio de la nostalgia desde un marco teórico y artístico es increíblemente rico y necesario. A su vez, señalar que da una visión crítica de la relación de la URSS con la cultura, que desde luego es un buen ejercicio para deshacer el folclore soviético tan típico dentro del activismo de la izquierda revolucionaria.
Por otro lado, me he aburrido soberanamente en sus extractos sobre la nostalgia dentro del espacio urbano y la percepción de esta por ciertos artistas rusos. Capítulos infumables a los que no ha ayudado la concepción liberal-idealista del mundo de la autora y que por momentos rezuma un derrotismo en base a una percepción idealizada de la democracia occidental como proyecto político.
Por otro lado, me he aburrido soberanamente en sus extractos sobre la nostalgia dentro del espacio urbano y la percepción de esta por ciertos artistas rusos. Capítulos infumables a los que no ha ayudado la concepción liberal-idealista del mundo de la autora y que por momentos rezuma un derrotismo en base a una percepción idealizada de la democracia occidental como proyecto político.
April 7, 2020
“Nostalgia inevitably reappears as a defense mechanism in a time of accelerated rhythms of life and historical upheavals.”
A solid contemplative & academic study of nostalgia.
There are incredibly rich and long sections (Part II & III) about the cultural, social, and architectural histories of distinct Russian and European towns. I was not interested in these historical details, so I wasn't able to read the whole thing (maybe I would later).
Anyway, it is an excellent book. I especially liked the introductory chapter and chapter 4 (Restorative Nostalgia). It is a type of book that made me want to have a cup of coffee and talk about it (as a discussion) with someone for hours!
A solid contemplative & academic study of nostalgia.
There are incredibly rich and long sections (Part II & III) about the cultural, social, and architectural histories of distinct Russian and European towns. I was not interested in these historical details, so I wasn't able to read the whole thing (maybe I would later).
Anyway, it is an excellent book. I especially liked the introductory chapter and chapter 4 (Restorative Nostalgia). It is a type of book that made me want to have a cup of coffee and talk about it (as a discussion) with someone for hours!
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