The future of nostalgia cover

The future of nostalgia

by Svetlana Boym

"Why is it that the age of globalization is accompanied by a no less global epidemic of nostalgia? What happens to Old World memories in a New World order? Do we even know what we are nostalgic for?". "Combining philosophical essay, aesthetic analysis and personal memoir, Boym explores the spaces of collective nostalgia, national myths and the personal stories of exiles. She guides us through the ruins and construction sites of post-communist cities such as St. Petersburg, Moscow and Berlin, explores the imagined homelands of writers and artists like Vladimir Nabokov, Joseph Brodsky and Ilya Kabakov and examines the souvenir collections of ordinary immigrants. In short, Boym has written a new kind 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."--BOOK JACKET.

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Chappie’s discussion starters

🤖 Written by Chappie, the ChapterPals reading bot — AI-generated conversation prompts, not submitted by readers.

  1. Which character stayed with you after you turned the last page, and why?
  2. Was there a moment where you disagreed with a character’s choice? What would you have done?
  3. What theme did this book keep circling back to — and did it earn its ending?
  4. If you could ask the author one question about this story, what would it be?
  5. Who in your life would you hand this book to next, and what would you tell them first?