NOSTALGIA: Place-making on a distance

Nostalgia holds an increasingly significant place in today’s social and political landscape. It serves as a lens through which we can explore and understand issues such as political polarization, nationalism, migration experiences and exile, climate catastrophe and future imaginaries. Key thinker on nostalgia, Svetlana Boym, suggests that while nostalgia often leans towards yearning for past ‘golden ages’ and can be associated with reactionary nationalism, it also possesses potential
for reflection and negotiations. This seminar showcases three research endeavours on the social and political functions of nostalgia in how Sweden, Egypt and Iran are imagined from a distance in time and/or space.

Seminar guests include Dr. Nima Naghibi, Professor of English at Toronto Metropolitan University. Dr. Nermin Elsherif, Assistant Professor of Screen Cultures and Heritage studies at Utrecht University and Maryam Fanni, PhD Candidate in Design at HDK-Valand, University of Gothenburg. The seminar will be moderated by Onkar Kular, Professor of Design, HDK-Valand, University of Gothenburg.

The seminar is organised through PLACE – Public Life, Arts and Critical Engagement at the Artistic Faculty, University of Gothenburg.
For those wishing to attend online please email maryam.fanni@gu.se for link information.

Speaker biographies

Dr. Nima Naghibi is Professor of English at Toronto Metropolitan University in Toronto. She teaches and researches in the areas of postcolonial, diasporic studies, literatures of immigration and exile, and life narratives. She is the author of Women Write Iran: Nostalgia and Human Rights from the Diaspora (Minnesota Press, 2016) and Rethinking Global Sisterhood: Western Feminism and Iran (Minnesota Press, 2007).

Dr. Nermin Elsherif is a cultural studies scholar with a background in urbanism. In 2023 she defended her PhD thesis Co-producing the “Good Old Days”. Nostalgia, social media, and the search for a better image of the Egyptian nation at University of Amsterdam. She is now Assistant Professor in Media and Performance Studies at Utrecht University. In an earlier life, she designed books, maps, and spaces.

Maryam Fanni is a graphic designer and PhD student in Design at HDK-Valand, University of Gothenburg. Her ongoing PhD project Reading the Signs – distinction-making nostalgia in Swedish post-war suburbs investigates how nostalgic narratives are manifested in contemporary urban renewal projects in Stockholm’s postwar suburb centers.