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The start of the 21st century is marked by a persistence of nostalgic
feelings; there is a lasting tendency in politics, culture, and the
entertainment industry to use nostalgia as a tool to engage people in
voting, buying, consuming, and "productively" participating in
societies, in both Western countries and across the world. Yet thinking
of nostalgia only as a top-down phenomenon does not encompass either the
dynamics of its circulation or its significance in contemporary
mediatized societies. Nostalgia has also become deeply anchored in
people´s everyday lives. Not only are contemporary media users the
targets of nostalgia-evoking communication by societal actors,
institutions, and organizations, they increasingly contribute to a
bottom-up communication of nostalgia through various creative
media-related practices. How and where these different modes and forms
of nostalgia relate to, oppose, or reinforce each other are questions
that traditional conceptualizations and explanations of nostalgia no
longer seem to satisfy.

[![unsplash-felipe-belluco-127793.jpg](https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/felipe-belluco-127793-450x450.jpg "unsplash-felipe-belluco-127793.jpg"){.alignleft
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sizes="(max-width: 450px) 100vw, 450px"}](https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/felipe-belluco-127793.jpg)The
first IMNN conference aims to critically investigate the contemporary
epistemology and ontology of nostalgia by providing new perspectives,
theories, and research methods. The ambition is to inform our
understanding of the numerous contexts that have been, currently are,
and might become relevant for understanding nostalgia, while at the same
time discussing the significance of media and communication in these
changing contexts on a local, transnational, and global scale.

In the last few years, scholars have observed an increasing interest in
nostalgia. This not only seems to indicate a fascination with nostalgia
itself, but also an awareness that nostalgia might be highly relevant
for media scholars' attempts to explain our relationship with the past,
present, and future. However, despite a half century long tradition of
nostalgia research, the abundance of literature on the topic, and
evident advancements, the field still lacks a thorough integration of
the conditions that shape and change the ways in which nostalgia is
*salient* today. This may be due to the use of methods which fail to
acknowledge the dialectical relationship between nostalgia and media, or
the ease with which existing definitions of nostalgia have been accepted
without interrogation. It may also be due to the sliding significance of
the term "nostalgia" itself, and our subsequent failure to recognize the
myriad phenomena that fall under its umbrella.

We invite scholars and professionals to examine nostalgia critically, in
order to reveal aspects that might have been disregarded, misunderstood,
forgotten, or ignored in the past. The conference also encourages
historical perspectives shining light on shifting features of nostalgia
over time, to start a conversation that will take us beyond what have
become our unchallenged and unquestioned premises. Together, we want to
move past the oversimplifications of nostalgia that have proven
inadequate for the questions we are facing in mediatized societies.

We welcome submissions on the following themes:

*Media, communication and nostalgia*

- Nostalgia and (digital) communication
- Media and mediated nostalgia
- Mediatization of nostalgia and self-nostalgizing media
- Nostalgia as communicative practice and/or communicative strategy
- Datafication and nostalgia

*Theoretical approaches and conceptual boundaries*

- Epistemology and ontology of nostalgia
- History of nostalgia research
- Archeology of nostalgia
- Nostalgia and memory
- Retro and vintage
- Nostalgia and other feelings: melancholia, solastalgia, culture of
  loss and despair
- Nostalgia and Utopia/Dystopia
- Contradictions, paradoxes and dilemmas of nostalgia

*Geographies of nostalgia*

- De-westernized nostalgia
- Local, regional, national, transnational, and global nostalgia
- Spaces, scales and times of nostalgia

*Politics of nostalgia*

- Political uses of nostalgia (propaganda)
- Nostalgia and ideology
- Nostalgia and migration
- Nostalgia and identity
- Institutionalization of nostalgic cultures and of the past (museums,
  monuments) Communities of nostalgia

*Economies of nostalgia*

- Commodification of nostalgia
- Retro gaming and retro cultures
- Fetish and vintage
- Autotelic nostalgias
- Nostalgia industries
- Advertising and marketing
- Tourism and gastronomy

##### **Submission guidelines**

Please send an abstract of up to 500 words (including a clear
explanation of the theoretical and/or methodological approach), a
bibliography, and a short bio to
[medianostalgianetwork@gmail.com](mailto:medianostalgianetwork@gmail.com){target="_blank"
rel="noopener noreferrer"} before **March 15, 2018.**

##### **Important dates :** {#important-dates}

- March 15, 2018: Abstract submission deadline
- May 15, 2018: Notification of acceptance
- September 1, 2018: Full paper due
- November 8-9, 2018: IMNN Conference in Stockholm

##### **Conference conveners:**

Ekaterina Kalinina (Södertörn University, Sweden), Emmanuelle Fantin
(Paris-Sorbonne University, France), Manuel Menke (Augsburg University,
Germany), Katharina Niemeyer (University of Quebec in Montreal, Canada)

##### **Scientific committee:**

Josh Carney (American University of Beirut), Claire Coleman (Western
Sydney University, Australia), Emmanuelle Fantin (Paris-Sorbonne
University, France), Sébastien Févry (Catholic University of Louvain,
Belgium), Berber Hagedoorn (University of Groningen, the Netherlands),
Ekaterina Kalinina (Södertörn University, Sweden), Emily Keightley
(Loughborough University, UK), Ryan Lizardi (SUNY Polytechnic
Institute), Manuel Menke (Augsburg University, Germany), Katharina
Niemeyer (University of Quebec in Montreal, Canada), Tristan Pare-Morin
(University of Pennsylvania, USA), Dominik Schrey (Karlsruhe Institute
of Technology, Germany)


The start of the 21st century is marked by a persistence of nostalgic feelings; there is a lasting tendency in politics, culture, and the entertainment industry to use nostalgia as a tool to engage people in voting, buying, consuming, and “productively” participating in societies, in both Western countries and across the world.

CfP: 1st International Media and Nostalgia Network (IMNN) conference &#8220;Communicative forms and practices of nostalgia: conceptual, critical and historical perspectives&#8221; Nov 8-9, 2018 @ Södertörn University, Stockholm, SWE. Deadline: March 15, 2018.

Messaggi di Rogue Scholar

CfP: 1st International Media and Nostalgia Network (IMNN) conference “Communicative forms and practices of nostalgia: conceptual, critical and historical perspectives” Nov 8-9, 2018 @ Södertörn University, Stockholm, SWE. Deadline: March 15, 2018.