Dr Beverly Wagner, Department of Marketing, who has initiated a seminar series called 'Nostalgia in the 21st Century' prompted by her study of consumer behaviour, consumer culture, consumer nostalgia and retro marketing, talks here about the study of nostalgia. An inter-disciplinary research group was formed to explore the topic in more depth and funds from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) has resulted in a seminar series focused on nostalgia.
Taking place over two years, there are six one-day seminars, each dealing with a specific theme and involving expert speakers, both academic and non-academic. The first seminar – Material culture: Retro - took place on January 14 with the speakers being professors David Lowenthal, University College London, Robert Schindler, Rutgers University and Bruce Peters from Glasgow School of Art.
The second seminar, scheduled for April 22, will focus on print and media, exploring trends in publishing, film, art and the media. Speakers will be Julian Gorman, a practitioner from Likemind Group, Professor Andrew Higson from York University and Dr Lyn Thomas from London Metropolitan.
The Nostalgia project also involves a writing competition, Glasgow Remembered: Food and Nostalgia. This competition will culminate in an inter-generational family event on March 13 organised as part of the Aye Write literary festival and part of the ESRC Festival of Social Science.
All details of the presentations, as well as videos and photographs of the lectures are on the webpage www.strath.ac.uk/nostalgia