This is episode #15 of the podcast and it’s Thursday, the 14th of April, 2022.
My invited speaker today is Dr. Clay Routledge, an existential psychologist and the Arden and Donna Hetland Distinguished Professor of Business at North Dakota State University, the director of the Psychology of Progress Project, a faculty scholar at the Sheila and Robert Challey Institute for Global Innovation and Growth, a senior research fellow at Archbridge Institute, and an editor for Profectus, a periodic web-based magazine focused on civilizational progress and human flourishing.
Our topic of discussion is nostalgia and nostalgic experience. Nostalgia is generally defined as a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past. We started by summarizing the concept’s long history of three millennia, where it received different characterizations, and then moved to how people understand and experience nostalgia today. While nostalgia is a past-oriented emotion that has implications for the present, as it leads to increments in self-esteem, it also has implications for the future.
The second part of the discussion moved toward technology when we talked about the possibility of using immersive technologies to experience nostalgic moments. Here is the show.
Show Notes:
- nostalgia and nostalgic experience
- the concept’s history of three millennia and its different characterizations
- methodological approaches to understanding nostalgia
- nostalgia and the cross-cultural lexicon
- nostalgic reverie
- scent-evoked nostalgia and self-esteem
- nostalgia, a past-oriented emotion with implications for the present and for the future
- does our current (scientific) understanding of nostalgia allow us to experience it in virtual reality?