Featured Speaker

Dr. G. Michelle Collins-Sibley

Dr. G. Michelle Collins-Sibley is a Professor Emerita of English and the former Director of the Africana Studies Program at the University of Mount Union

Dr. Collins-Sibley's talk will take a deep dive into what it means to live in an "Age of Nostalgia" and how education – specifically liberal arts education – may help us negotiate the backlash against cultural change.

Abstract

. . . and now nationally, even globally. We find ourselves in the throes of cultural backlash accelerating in this period of rapid social and cultural change. Why? One answer: we are caught up in an age of nostalgia: from the 17th century re-definition of the term as mental and physical disease to Faulkner’s 20 th century observation that “[t]he past is never dead. It’s not even past.” Heimweh, homesickness, maladie du pays, saudade: how far past must the past be before it’s experienced as the past? Or is it – as Faulkner suggests – more about the present moment and mood. This talk takes a deep dive into nostalgia as personal and cultural phenomenon, into what it means to live in an “Age of Nostalgia” and how education – specifically liberal arts education -- may help us negotiate the backlash of "weaponized" nostalgia that uses the past in the face of rapid cultural change.