Overview

Drawing on the event of Queen Elizabeth II’s death in 2022 as a central case study, this book explores the way we navigate the relationship between nostalgia and religion. Focusing on the lived experiences of ‘ordinary people’ and in tandem with the ‘turn to the self’ discourse, Deacy suggests that our relationship with nostalgia illustrates the shift from objective and transcendent value-systems towards the domain of everyday experience, love and loss. This book revisits the way we understand religion and the secular, using the medium of popular culture, such as radio, film, TV and music to interrogate the ‘nostalgia-as-religion’ narrative. The interpersonal and social elements of nostalgia are explored, such as through the way radio fostered virtual communities and played a key role regarding national, religious and cultural memory during the mourning of the Queen. Attention is given to how nostalgia has evolved over time, and how it can be understood as a religious process which transforms our lives at a time of loss and contributes to an eschatological future.

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9781350477810

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Chris Deacy shows how nostalgia is not so much an attempt to retreat to the past as an effort to find hope for the future, out of the shared resources of individual and communal memory. In offering us opportunities to reflect on meaning and value, nostalgia contains unmistakably religious aspects, albeit in secular form. * John C. Lyden, University of Nebraska Omaha, USA * In this original and searching work, Chris Deacy captures the powerful collective emotion in response to the death of Queen Elizabeth II. This text not only shows how radio brings us unique personal connections to significant events, but how it integrates multiple depths of our social worlds across religion and the secular. Deacy skilfully rescues the value of nostalgia as something that helps us transform, not only the past, but the present and future. * Jeremy Carrette, University of Edinburgh, UK * Chris Deacy highlights the very real power and significance that nostalgia plays in everyday life. Deftly paying attention to media, political, social, and religious dimensions of nostalgia, and rooted in an analysis of media coverage of the passing of Queen Elizabeth II, this excellent resource ably explores nostalgia as it functions as “Implicit Religion” for individuals and communities. * Stephen Garner, Laidlaw College, New Zealand *

Author Information

Chris Deacy is a Reader in Theology and Religious Studies and the course lead for Philosophy, Religion and Ethics, University of Kent, UK.

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