Philosophy:
Dylan Trigg (Central European University)
Atmospheres of pastness: On childhood nostalgia

https://univ-grenoble-alpes-fr.zoom.us/j/92577529337?pwd=lQbbmekMORc9xFVirKd8oLRFbAEnZv.1

Abstract: The aim of this talk is to consider the relationship between childhood and nostalgia. My overarching claim in this talk is that to understand the relationship between nostalgia and childhood, we have to understood how temporality of nostalgia is best grasped as an atmosphere. This claim is predicated on the conviction that an atmospheric reading of childhood can account for the diffused temporality of nostalgia together with how specific objects are generative of resonant meaning within this temporality. The talk unfolds in three stages. First, I consider what it means to conceive pastness in terms of an atmosphere, focusing especially on the role affects play in this conception. Second, I apply this framework to the case of childhood. With recourse to the work of Gaston Bachelard, I argue that nostalgia toward childhood is neither memory nor imagination, but instead a synthesis of each aspect grasped through reverie. Finally, I consider how childhood as a distinct atmospheric phenomenon is grasped from the perspective of adulthood.