Seminar investigates nostalgia in print and media

Lyn Thomas, Andrew Hickson and Julian Gorham

The second of six seminars in the "Nostalgia in the 21st Century" series was held at Strathclyde on April 22. This inter-disciplinary project between the Department of Marketing and the Department of English Studies is funded by the ESRC and sets out to evaluate nostalgia usage in contemporary culture.

The first seminar in January explored trends towards retro consumption while the second continued the theme of nostalgia and material culture by considering nostalgic evocations in print and media.

Participants at the seminar were drawn from across the UK and from diverse areas including Scottish identity, film archives, advertising, literature, cultural history, television, food and branding.

Speakers included Professor Andrew Higson, Department of Theatre, Film and Television, University of York, who spoke on "Nostalgia isn't what it used to be: Accessing the past through the internet and film." Next up was Dr Lyn Thomas of the Institute of the Study of European Transformations, London Metropolitan University, with a speech entitled, "Nostalgia for lost and leisured femininities in contemporary lifestyle magazines and television." She suggested that we are caught in a vicious circle of working more in order to consume more and that our dissatisfaction may be tinged with nostalgia for an imagined, more leisurely past, hoping to escape from pressures of modern living.

Julian Gorham, Head of Words, of Likemind, London, presented insights of his work in branding and use of nostalgia cues utilised in practice. In "The Sweet Sell of Nostalgia: How memories of a time-that-never-was help us to keep going", he demonstrated real-life brand marketing strategies and described how nostalgia satisfies emotional needs, especially in uncertain times. He drew on examples from advertising, brand naming, new product development and social networking in order to demonstrate how brand owners consciously seek to persuade consumers by pressing the nostalgia button.

The seminar ended with respondent summaries proposed by Dr Amy Holdsworth, University of Glasgow, Dr Aliakbar Jafari of Strathclyde's Marketing department and Katie McGrath of Strathclyde's English Studies department, followed by a round table discussion involving all 23 participants.

Details of past and future seminars can be found at http://www.strath.ac.uk/nostalgia/ including recorded presentations of the guest speakers. The third seminar - Urban Nostalgia - is to be held on September 24.