A short explanation of what you’re researching? how you’re researching it?
I want to research Nostalgia and specifically it’s use and creation in modern media. I will have to narrow it down to a specific media group and currently I think I will limit it to games. The idea being that I personally have observed lots of projects in the indie/AA gaming landscape that harkens back to a lot of ‘nostalgic’ mediums for games such as the rise of what has been dubbed ‘boomer shooters’- emulating games like the original Doom, and games specifcally designed to emulate the restraints of the PS1. My question is still taking form as I continue my research. I will be researching it via two methods, the writings of published scholars on the topics of nostalgia and its presence in the games industry and if possible via interviews with indie devs that have created the more popular versions of these ‘nostalgia’ games. I say ‘creation’ of nostalgia because some of the consumers of this media are people that belong to my generation or younger who would not be old enough to have ‘nostalgia’ in the proper sense of having actually experienced and grown up with these games hence the ‘nostalgia’ I refer to is one of something never experienced. This can be seen with the popularity of films like The Guardians of the Galaxy or Stranger Things that make plenty of musical and visual reference to 70s and 80s and aim to create a nostalgic sense for its audience despite the primary audience being too young.
why it is important to research this subject?
I believe this is important to address as I and others have seen a sharp rise in ‘Nostalgia’ and its presence in culture here in the west. This is ranging from popular media such as games, television, film to more cynical spaces such as politics with slogans like “Make America Great Again” and general allusions to a ‘better past’ that needs to be recaptured by conservative parties in the United States and the United Kingdom. I believe it’s prominence in the current cultural zeitgeist is more than enough reason to critically engage it and analyze it.
Keywords
Nostalgia, Games, Retroculture, Sehnsucht
Sources
Howard, S. A. (2012). Nostalgia. Analysis, 72(4), 641–650. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23359115
This source provides multiple academic frameworks for nostalgia such as the Naivete model or the Poverty of the Present model which are important for my proposal as we need to define Nostalgia more concretely to engage with it.
Makai, P. (2018). Video Games as Objects and Vehicles of Nostalgia. Humanities. [Online]. 7 (4). p.p. 123. Available from: http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/h7040123.
This one provides an initial view into video games as vehicles of nostalgia and talks about retrogaming culture. It also engages with games and the retrogaming culture as to why these nostalgic movements may have come about.
Garda, M.B., 2013, August. Nostalgia in Retro Game Design. In DiGRA Conference.
Another one discussing retro game design with a heavy focus on Nostalgia’s presence in it, talking about constructive and recreative nostalgia. One being engaging with them to critically develop on them or critically engage and the other being the recapture of that era with rose tinted glasses.
Kehl, D. G. (2000). Writing the Long Desire: The Function of “Sehnsucht in the Great Gatsby” and “Look Homeward, Angel.” Journal of Modern Literature, 24(2), 309–319. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3831913
While not engaging with modern media or games directly it goes in detail over the function and definition of “Sehnsucht” a nostalgia or longing for something never have been experienced. A longing based on the sterilization and redefinition of historical periods.