Journal Article

Selfhood and "nostalgia:" Sensory and material memories of the childhood house in late Georgian Britain

Abstract

Focusing on autobiographies written from the 1790s to the 1820s, this article demonstrates that material, emotional, and sensorial memories of the childhood house and its location were integral to constructions of self. Firstly, it traces the interplay between prevailing cultural forms, family memory, and identity, and proposes that these changed over time, shaped by cultural, social and economic factors. Secondly, in analysing these personal memories, it contributes to the debates around the meanings of the ‘emotional disposition’ of nostalgia, arguing that it was central to the formation of both national culture and individual selfhood.

Attached files

Authors

Begiato, Joanne

Oxford Brookes departments

Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences\Department of History, Philosophy and Culture

Dates

Year of publication: 2019
Date of RADAR deposit: 2018-10-18

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License

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Related resources

This RADAR resource is the Accepted Manuscript of Selfhood and "nostalgia:" Sensory and material memories of the childhood house in late Georgian Britain