[ecrea] conference "Flashbacks - nostalgic media and mediated forms of nostalgia"

*We have the pleasure to announce that the registration for the 
conference "Flashbacks - nostalgic media and mediated forms of 
nostalgia" is open now. *
*Please contact: (flashbacks2012 /at/ gmail.com) <mailto:(flashbacks2012 /at/ gmail.com)>*
*Fees: 100 CHF (normal fee), 70 CHF (students)*
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*Preliminary program: 
http://flashbacks2012.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/flashbacks_program3.pdf*
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*Key Notes: Daniel Dayan (Paris), Ute Holl (Basel), Andrew Hoskins 
(Glasgow)*
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*13-14 September 2012 *

Institute of Communication, Media and Journalism studies

University of Geneva, Switzerland

Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences

Department of Sociology


The conference is supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation and 
the Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences


http://flashbacks2012.wordpress.com/

Media are time machines. They remember and forget. Media screen and 
record parts of memory and history as well as they maintain collective 
memories and contribute to historical narratives by (re)shaping events, 
happenings or other incidents. Media also tend to remind their own past 
by re-using archive-images in the present, for example. In this sense, 
media seem to be nostalgic of the past as well as of their own one. 
Nostalgia as a concept, feeling or expression is not new. The notion has 
been introduced by a doctor in Switzerland (17th century) to describe 
the phenomenon of homesickness. Related to nostalgia is also the idea of 
melancholia or yearning. These days, there seems to be a BOOM of 
nostalgia: The Artist (revival of the silent film) or television series 
like Mad Men -- exploring aesthetics and social life of the sixties -- 
are examples of what we could name nostalgic media (makers). Digital 
photography on cell phones gets a polaroid-touch; the retro design 
becomes digitized. Advertising for watches or cars is linked to 
nostalgic forms of family tradition. Fans of the fifties organise 
parties and fashion events to feel like being part of the past in the 
present. Being nostalgic and remembering pieces of the past also 
includes forgetting. What kind of memories are discriminated? Can media 
really be nostalgic? Which specific forms of nostalgia appear in 
contemporary society and why? Can people be nostalgic if they did not 
experience the past they pretend being nostalgic of? What kind of 
politics of nostalgia exist? What is the impact of nostalgia on the 
media market and its influence on economy? Finally, given the arbitrary 
(?) use of the past in all its imaginable variations and cultural 
systems, is it still possible to use the word nostalgia or should there 
be a neologism describing the transformation of the past in(to) the 
digital era? Could it even be possible to be simply nostalgic 
of nostalgia; finally describing the eternal research for (lost) identity?

--
http://flashbacks2012.wordpress.com/

Katharina Niemeyer
Université de Genève/ Département de sociologie
Institut des sciences de la communication, des médias et du journalisme
40 Boulevard du Pont-d'Arve
1211 Genève 4
Tél.: ++41 22 379 8196
http://www.isc.unige.ch/ <http://www.unige.ch/ses/socio/communication>