Nostalgia, reflexivity, and the narratives of self: reflections on Devine's “Removing the rough edges?”

Abstract

This paper offers some theoretical insights into Devine's account of the Riverside Museum in Glasgow. It elaborates on three interrelated themes the authors have derived from Devine's report: (1) how historical representations arouse nostalgic sensations and sensibilities in museum visitors (2) the role of narratives in visitors' development of their nostalgic experiences (3) the importance of engagement to the creation of such nostalgic experiences. The paper contributes to the existing literature on nostalgia, experiential consumption, and the museum experience literature by establishing a relationship between nostalgia, reflexivity, and individuals' narratives of self in the conditions of (post/late/high) modernity.

Keywords:

• nostalgia
• reflexivity
• modernity
• narrativity
• engagement
• museum

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Derek Bryce and the five editors of this special issue for their useful comments on the earlier version of this paper.

Notes

1. The concept of “willing suspension of disbelief,” first coined by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in his Biographia Literaria in 1817, denotes the status of suspending one's belief that a piece of artwork is not real. Suspension of one's disbelief is crucial to enjoying the aesthetics and fantasies of a piece of art.