Nostalgia: the evolution of a disease and its evocation through music in nostalgia films

Abstract

Throughout history, nostalgia has appeared in different manifestations that have always had a common denominator. Svetlana Boym writes that ‘nostalgia accompanied each new stage of modernization, taking on different genres and forms, playing tricks with the timetables’ (Boym, 2001, p. 346). Taking cue from this ubiquity of nostalgia, the objective of this dissertation is to discuss it as an inextricable part of modern society. The analysis will focus on the phenomenon itself, and the various changes it went through, until reaching the final manifestations of nostalgia in popular culture and mass-media. In order to fully understand the role nostalgia has in society, the analysis will focus on the ways in which it can be triggered by the mass media, particularly through the use of specific popular songs in the film genre known as ‘nostalgia film’.