The dissertation discusses the work O amanuense Belmiro of Cyro dos Anjos, based on the critical reception, going through some readings and studies undertaken on the mining author and his literary production, to settle in the analysis of the novel's narrative. At this point, it looks like the character Belmiro Borba faces the evils of affection. In other words, how it reacts to evil that print you love, nostalgia, fear and loneliness. Each of these affects the mark with a different pattern of pain. However, our brave hero always reacts the same way; writing their pain on a daily intimate and solitary as a way of redemption. This analytical perspective about the emotions that affect the amanuensis takes us at the end of the dissertation, to reflect on ourselves and our relationship to life. / A dissertação aborda a obra O amanuense Belmiro, de Cyro dos Anjos, partindo da recepção crítica, passando por algumas leituras e estudos empreendidos sobre o autor mineiro e sua produção literária, até fixar-se na análise da narrativa do romance. Nesse ponto, examina-se como o personagem Belmiro Borba enfrenta os males dos afetos. Em outras palavras, como ele reage diante do mal que lhe imprimem o amor, a nostalgia, o medo e a solidão. Percebemos que cada um desses afetos o marca com uma estampa diferente de dor. No entanto, nosso bravo herói reage sempre da mesma maneira; escrevendo sua dor em um diário íntimo e solitário, como forma de redenção. Essa perspectiva de análise acerca dos afetos que acometem o amanuense nos leva, ao final da dissertação, a uma reflexão sobre nós mesmos e sobre nossa relação com a vida.

Abstract Rosa Liksom is one of the most internationally recognized contemporary Finnish authors and leading Finnish postmodernists. Indeed, the postmodernist aesthetics of her works have received most of the academic attention: features such as irony, dark humor, intertextuality, and parody have been convincingly studied. Liksom’s singular public image has been connected to these aesthetics, but although her cosmopolitanism is often mentioned, her postmodern nonconformity has usually been read in a local and a national context. Liksom’s engagement with modernity has been only implicitly and insufficiently explicated. This dissertation focuses on Liksom’s works and public image in the broader historical context of the modern project in its 20th century legacy. The study of Liksom’s engagement with the utopianism of the modern project is paramount to a deeper understanding of the politico-ethical underpinnings of Liksom’s works and image. To examine Liksom’s retrospection of the modern project, this dissertation makes use of a broad range of theoretical approaches, which can be collectively summarized as contextual close reading. The central theoretical framework is Fredric Jameson’s theory of postmodernism. Other important theories are Linda Hutcehon’s theories of postmodernism and irony, Svetlana Boym’s typology of nostalgia, as well as Krishan Kumar’s theory of utopia. This study elucidates the complexity of Liksom’s engagement with the modern project and bestows new importance on the positive, constructive elements of Liksom’s works that have hitherto gained less attention. Liksom’s works try to salvage something from the history of the modern project instead of merely lingering in the negative attempt to deconstruct historical truths and dismantle the very possibility of such truths. Below the irony and criticism of utopianism in Liksom’s artistic ethos runs a mournful undercurrent that broods over the lack of agency and political choices we seem to face in our present historical condition, and a nostalgia that reflects upon the lost utopian potentialities of the past. Liksom’s works suggest this process of mourning may result in a tentative prospect of communion between people and cultures based on an understanding of their shared situatedness in a postmodern, uncertain world. / Tiivistelmä Rosa Liksom on kansainvälisesti tunnetuimpia suomalaisia nykykirjailijoita ja keskeisiä postmodernisteja. Akateeminen kiinnostus onkin keskittynyt ensisijaisesti hänen teostensa postmoderniin estetiikkaan: teosten ironiaa, musta huumoria, intertekstuaalisuutta ja parodiaa on tutkittu ansiokkaasti. Liksomin ainutlaatuinen taiteilijakuva on kytketty tähän estetiikkaan, mutta vaikka hänen kosmopoliittisuutensa usein mainitaankin, hänen postmodernia epäsovinnaisuuttaan on yleensä tulkittu lokaalissa ja kansallisessa viitekehyksessä. Toistaiseksi Liksomin suhdetta modernin ajan ihanteisiin on pohdittu vain välillisesti ja riittämättömästi. Tässä väitöskirjassa Liksomin teoksia ja julkisuuskuvaa käsitellään laajemmassa viitekehyksessä, nimittäin modernin projektin ja sen 1900-luvun perinnön kontekstissa. Ymmärtääksemme Liksomin teosten ja julkisuuskuvan poliittis-eettisiä perustuksia syvällisemmin on välttämätöntä tarkastella hänen suhdettaan moderniin utooppisuuteen. Tässä väitöskirjassa selvitetään monipuolisen teoreettisen välineistön avulla, kuinka Liksom retrospektiivisesti tarkastelee modernin projektia. Teoreettista lähestymistapaa voidaan kutsua kontekstuaaliseksi lähiluvuksi. Keskeinen teoreettinen viitekehys on Fredric Jamesonin postmodernismin teoria. Muita keskeisiä teorioita ovat Linda Hutcheonin teoria postmodernismista ja ironiasta, Svetlana Boymin nostalgian typologia, sekä Krishan Kumarin ja utopia-teoria. Liksomin taiteellisen eetoksen ironisuuden ja utopiakritiikin alla kulkee surumielinen pohjavire, joka pohtii nykyisessä historiallisessa tilanteessa kohtamaamme toimijuuden ja poliittisten vaihtoehtojen puutetta, ja nostalginen pohjavire, joka mietiskelee menetettyjä utooppisia mahdollisuuksia. Liksomin teoksiset antavat ymmärtää, että tämän suruprosessin tuloksena voi olla mahdollisuus löytää ihmisten ja kulttuurien välinen yhteys, joka perustuu ymmärrykseen siitä, että me kaikki paikannumme postmoderniin, epävarmaan maailmaan.

The primary goal of this study is to observe how the meaning of nostalgia is negotiated and remediated in Li Ziqi’s short videos, and understand the construction and expression of pastoral images in the video, by examining its social modality of the audiencing site and the compositional and social modalities of the image site through a Critical Visual Approach(CVA). Except for CVA, Remix as a thinking tool helps to frame data selection, mixed methods and theories throughout. To be specific, the aim of this study is to examine Li Ziqi’s communication of nostalgia online via short videos, showcases how the pastoral characteristics are evoked in the videos and the relationship between nostalgia of pastoral life and short videos. Moreover, it is of interest to think about what nostalgia communication on short videos say about society. When it comes to the two sites, firstly, an ethnographic method of thick descriptions is used to study media text and selected comments on the audiencing site. Secondly, on the image site, compositional analysis on selected visual materials is used to examine its compositions and then signs and meanings embedded in them are analyzed through semiotic analysis and interpreted by thick descriptions. As for theories, nostalgia and media, the logic of social acceleration, remediation and new media, and simulacra and simulation are applied to facilitate discussion.

[pt] Como entender a obra literária dedicada às imagens de infância escrita por Walter Benjamin? Especialmente se ele enuncia essa obra, como fez nas Palavras Prévias de Infância berlinense: 1900, em 1938, enquanto um procedimento de vacinação (Verfarhen der Impfung)? Esta tese visa compreender e apresentar essa vacinação. Para isso seguimos o rastro que liga as imagens de infância à nostalgia, uma vez que é dessa relação que decorre a vacinação. Benjamin preparava-se para o exílio, contudo ele já se encontrava exilado. Então, do que se tratava, efetivamente, quando ele escreveu essas palavras? Tratava-se de uma despedida de casa, da cidade de Berlim, mas também do permanente sentimento de perda sobre a irreversibilidade do tempo. O que isso significa? Que, uma vez sitiada entre duas guerras mundiais, Infância berlinense foi concebida na contramão de uma experiência histórica, cujo resultado se antevia no horizonte mundial, em virtude de outra experiência (Erfahrung) sobre a qual Benjamin refletia desde a juventude. Esta seria pautada por uma transmissibilidade da linguagem humana ciente da verdadeira perda de experiência: o isolamento, o esquecimento, o mutismo e a morte. É nesse sentido que a obra procura chegar a uma coletividade através de imagens narrativas que suscitam a memória dos leitores. É por isso necessário entender os processos de escavação iniciados por Benjamin para encontrar, enterrados, objetos perdidos que tocam ainda nas raias da vida. Para tal, apresentamos três capítulos: o primeiro versa sobre as relações da memória e a filosofia da história; o segundo, sobre a concepção moderna de nostalgia e aquela que Benjamin apresenta; o terceiro, sobre os processos de escavação e a infância em Benjamin. Para ele, o passado é um outrora em direção ao qual se vai quando se encontra a cognoscibilidade dos seus vestígios no agora. Estes vestígios podem ser fragmentos, ruínas e imagens, deixados por uma experiência efêmera. Nesse caso, do que se sentiria nostalgia? Devemos responder sabendo que existem pelo menos dois tipos de nostalgia: uma que apela à atividade da linguagem e da arte e outra inoperante, até nociva. O exílio, como expressão limite do isolamento humano, exige um posicionamento diante da vida. Analisaremos como responderam Adorno, Benjamin e Brecht. Por fim, chegaremos às diferentes abordagens de Benjamin sobre o tema da infância: desde a análise de livros pedagógicos à criação de um programa para um teatro infantil proletário; passando pelas transmissões radiofônicos que o filósofo redigiu e emitiu, até chegar às imagens de infância. Em Infância berlinense Benjamin opera a mais misteriosa de todas as capacidades humanas que é transformar imagens em histórias e histórias em imagens. Ao tornar uma vivência muda numa experiência transmissível apresentava-se uma arte da nostalgia porvir. / [en] How to understand the literary work dedicated to childhood images, written by Walter Benjamin, especially if he states this work as a process of inoculation (Verfarhen der Impfung) in the Preface of Berlin Childhood around 1900? This thesis wishes to comprehend and present this inoculation. For such, we follow traces which link childhood images to nostalgia, once the inoculation results from such link. Benjamin said he had prepared to the exile, while he had already exiled. So, what had he meant effectively when he wrote those words? He meant he turned his home out, Berlin, but also he turned out from the permanent feeling of lost, generated for the irreversibility of time. Once besieged between two world wars, Berlin Childhood had been written against of an historical experience which results were predictable in international horizon, thanks other concept of experience (Erfahrung) in which Benjamin had reflected about since his youngness. Experience would be shaped by transmissibility of human language, and we must to have in mind a kind of lost of experience: insulation, forgiveness, muteness and death. In such way, the work seeks to build collectiveness through narrative images aroused in the memory of readers. So, we ought to comprehend the process of excavation started by Benjamin to find buried and lost objects which deals with the borders of life. For such, we present three chapters: the first, on the relations between memory and philosophy of history; the second, on the modern conception of nostalgia and that, showed by Benjamin; and the last, on the process of excavation and childhood by Benjamin. For him, the past is an ertswhile which we go in its direction when we found the cognoscibility of its traces in a now. These traces may be fragments, ruins and images, let for a short-lived experience. In such case, what kind of nostalgia would we fell? We ought answer with two kinds of nostalgia: one which appeals to the speech and art activity and other inoperative, until harmful. As the limit expression of human insulation, the exile enforced a life positioning. We analyze how Adorno, Benjamin and Brecht answered to that. In the end, we developed different approaches on Benjamin reading of childhood: since his analysis of pedagogical books to the creation of a program to the proletarian childish theater, passing by radio transmissions written and broadcast by him, as such childhood images. In Berlin Childhood, Benjamin operates the most mysterious human capacity which is to transform images in stories and stories in images. Changing mute livings in broadcastable experiences, he showed for us a becoming art of nostalgia.

This study explores Durant Sihlali’s documentation of traumatic events during apartheid in South Africa, with specific focus on his watercolour paintings documenting the forced removals and demolitions that took place in Kliptown and Pimville during the seventies of the previous century. The argument can be made that Sihlali used the process of creating art as a type of narrative therapy, and that each artwork functions as a form of externalisation. Based on the assumption that each artwork is representative of a specific narrative in the broader context of the forced removals and demolitions, it is argued that the problem which Sihlali experienced, namely the trauma caused by the forced removals, is separated from himself through the process of creating an artwork. This made it possible for him to assume a more objective and external perspective towards the oppression afflicted by apartheid. Furthermore it is argued that Sihlali could not only manifest his emotions in an external format, namely the artwork, but that he also assumed a positive and optimistic position towards the conflict and oppression suffered during this time. The idea that he would have liked to open a museum of his artworks, where the South African community could learn more about him and the real “truth” of South African history, did not only suggest that his work harboured the potential to bring his own trauma to resolution, but could also bring peace to other South Africans, albeit as victim or oppressor. The cathartic characteristics of his artworks are conveyed through the delicate handling of his subject matter through his watercolour medium. This is not only reinforced by the delicate and sensitive brushwork in his paintings, but also by the nostalgic characteristics of his paintings, where memories are remembered without pain. / MA (History of Art), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

This study explores Durant Sihlali’s documentation of traumatic events during apartheid in South Africa, with specific focus on his watercolour paintings documenting the forced removals and demolitions that took place in Kliptown and Pimville during the seventies of the previous century. The argument can be made that Sihlali used the process of creating art as a type of narrative therapy, and that each artwork functions as a form of externalisation. Based on the assumption that each artwork is representative of a specific narrative in the broader context of the forced removals and demolitions, it is argued that the problem which Sihlali experienced, namely the trauma caused by the forced removals, is separated from himself through the process of creating an artwork. This made it possible for him to assume a more objective and external perspective towards the oppression afflicted by apartheid. Furthermore it is argued that Sihlali could not only manifest his emotions in an external format, namely the artwork, but that he also assumed a positive and optimistic position towards the conflict and oppression suffered during this time. The idea that he would have liked to open a museum of his artworks, where the South African community could learn more about him and the real “truth” of South African history, did not only suggest that his work harboured the potential to bring his own trauma to resolution, but could also bring peace to other South Africans, albeit as victim or oppressor. The cathartic characteristics of his artworks are conveyed through the delicate handling of his subject matter through his watercolour medium. This is not only reinforced by the delicate and sensitive brushwork in his paintings, but also by the nostalgic characteristics of his paintings, where memories are remembered without pain. / MA (History of Art), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

Certain unique sights and sounds of video games from the 1980s and 1990s have been codified as a retro game style, celebrated by collectors, historians, and game developers alike. In this report, I argue that this nostalgic celebration has escaped critical scrutiny and in particular omits the diverse experiences of girls and women who may have been alienated by the tough, intimidating nature of a twentieth-century video-game culture that was primarily created by and for boys. Indeed, attempts to attract girls to gaming, such as the 1990s girls' game movement, are usually criticized in or absent from mainstream video-game histories, and girly video games are rarely viewed with the same nostalgic fondness as games like Super Mario Bros. This condition points to a larger cultural practice of trivializing media for girls and, by extension, girlhood and girls themselves. My critical design response to this condition has been twofold. First, I have recuperated and resituated twentieth-century girly games as collectible, valuable, and nostalgic, thereby subverting conventional historical narratives and suggesting that these games have inherent cultural value. Second, I have created new works that reimagine 8-bit style as an expression of nostalgia for twentieth-century girlhood rather than for twentieth-century boyhood. This report contains documentation of some relevant projects I have undertaken, such as the creation of a video-game museum and an 8-bit video game called Electronic Sweet-N Fun Fortune Teller. In these projects and in future works, I hope to disrupt dominant narratives about video game history and nostalgia that continue to marginalize and trivialize girls' and women's experiences and participation in contemporary game cultures. / text

This document is a detailed description of the work produced throughout my graduate study in the Department of Photography and Film at VCU. Topics discussed in relation my photographic process include: stage, memory, character, the forgotten, and nostalgia.

Trying to remember is a form of forgetting. Memory fades, changes meaning, and disappears over time. While trying to find other ways to preserve stories about my family, it occurred to me that I could recreate what I remember in clay. I am creating collections of physical mementos of the memories that fill my head, focusing mainly on my childhood. Remembering is in itself an act of forgetting, and thus this is my memory preservation kit. I am recording memories of my family for posterity in clay before I have a chance to forget.

Studien undersöker den fysiska platsen Gamla Linköping där staden Linköping rekonstruerar och bevarar sin kollektiva historia genom de byggnader och de personliga minnen och berättelser som idag tillsammans utgör ett levande museum. Hus och byggnader har flyttats från sina ursprungliga platser runt om i staden och vissa har fått en helt ny funktion i Gamla Linköping. Studien undersöker även personliga minnen och kollektiva berättelser från informanter i Linköping för att besvara de frågeställningar rörande Gamla Linköpings betydelse för staden, varför behovet av rekonstruktion finns och vilken betydelse personliga minnen har för studiens informanter. Slutsatser som dras i studien är att Gamla Linköping berättar om de enskilda människornas vardag och miljö i dennes tid och rum och att rekonstruktion i full skala är ett ypperligt tillfälle att återuppleva och tolka en dåtid. Studien visar även att känslor som glädje, lycka och nostalgi är det som framträder mest när informanter berättar om personliga minnen som aktiveras genom både platser och föremål. / The study examines the physical location of Gamla Linköping where the city of Linköping reconstructs and preserves its collective history through the buildings and the personal memories and stories that today together constitute a living museum. Houses and buildings have been moved from their original locations around the city and some have been given a completely new function in Gamla Linköping. The study also examines personal memories and collective stories from informants in Linköping to answer the questions concerning Gamla Linköping's importance to the city, why the need for reconstruction exists and what importance personal memories have for the study's informants. Conclusions drawn in the study are that Gamla Linköping talks about the everyday life and environment of the individual people in their time and space and that reconstruction on a full scale is an excellent opportunity to relive and interpret a past. The study also shows that emotions such as happiness, joy and nostalgia are what emerges most when informants talks about personal memories that are triggered by both places and objects.