20 July 2008

Sante on nostalgia

I'm currently reading Luc Sante's Low Life—something I should have done when I lived in the Lower East Side before I escaped to the Brooklyn countryside. I'm quite taken by the book's critique of nostalgia, which Sante defines in his preface as a kind of false, delusional sentimentality for a version of history that might not have actually existed in the first place. There's something quite compelling about Sante's take on nostalgia, and even though his words are directed towards a specifically New York-centric brand of repackaging the past, I think the critique can easily apply to any number of architectural or urban adventures in nostalgia. Sante:

[Nostalgia] can be generally defined as a state of inarticulate contempt for the present and fear of the future, in concert with a yearning for order, constancy, safety, and community—qualities that were last enjoyed in childhood and are retroactively imagined as gracing the whole of the time before one's birth. [Low Life, xi]
New Urbanism, anyone?

5 comments:

Egyptian forum said...

مسابقات وجوائز - أخبار التعليم - الاسلام - اخبار مصر - أخبار منوعة - اخبار الفن والفنانين - المنتدى العام - أسئلة وأجوبة - يوتيوب :- YouTube كليبات أغانى عربية - كليبات أغانى اجنبية - فيديو اعلانات افلام - أخبار الرياضة المصرية- مصارعة حرة - " مشجعي النادى الاهلى - مشجعي نادى الزمالك - أفلام - أغانى - الحب والرومانسية - موضة وأزياء ومكياج وتجميل - منتدى الرشاقة والتخسيس - نكت مصرية - صور - صور طريفة ومضحكة
- المنتدى السياحى
- السياحة فى مصر - السياحة الخارجية
- مصريين خارج مصر - منتدى الموبايل
- رسائل موبايل - عروض شبكات المحمول
- نغمات موبايل نغمات للجوال
- منتدى الكمبيوتر والانترنت - مشاكل وحلول الكمبيوتر والانترنت
- كتب مجانية - برامج

Anonymous said...

Thanks for sharing this, I recently read the book and was amazing. A friend of mine who likes to get Viagra Canada buy me the book there.

stephs said...

Wow! I'm pretty sure that this caught up plenty of people's attention, Thumbs up for your work and Good writing skills!

i am jayne and i am a freelance writer..
see my related post here ------> Mens Suits

lesbian bondage said...

Great website, looks very clean and organized.

bondage sex said...

Great website, looks very clean and organized. And very interesting to read Your the article!