CFP: Reappraising nostalgia: The times and places of mindful yearning An international colloquium

Reappraising nostalgia: The times and places of mindful yearning   An international colloquium organized by Silvia Pierosara and Guido Giglioni   Università di Macerata, Italy   12-13 November 2026   By focusing on contextual clusters of meaning and historical interpretations dealing with notions of loss, identity and impermanence, this conference intends to explore the philosophical relevance of nostalgia for both contemporary thought and the history of ideas. From Johann Hofer in the late seventeenth century to Karl Jaspers in the twentieth century, nostalgia has been described as a particular kind of affliction (Weh, woe) involving emotional, cognitive and physical symptoms. The origin of the word, coined by Hofer by combining two Greek words, sheds light on its meaning and history: nostos (‘homecoming’) and algos (‘pain’): a wistful longing for familiar surroundings (in Hofer’s case, Switzerland). While being coterminous with such states of the mind and the body as yearning, melancholy, grief and regret, and while overlapping such places of human action as dispossession, exile and utopia, nostalgia cannot be reduced to any of the states and places above. The observation and recording of the features underpinning the syndrome that took shape between the seventeenth and twentieth centuries testify to the slow accretion of cultural, geographic and social meanings: the forced displacement from one’s native surroundings; the distinctive landscape of the Alps; the air, the water and the food indispensable for the life of a community; the emotions associated with the folk music of the area. And yet, despite its being historically and geographically localized, the story of nostalgia extends before and after the seventeenth century, and beyond the confines of western sensibilities. After all, nostos tells us of archives of immemorial myths, while algia reminds us of contemporary and global anxieties. Possible directions and subjects of research include critical review of current models of identity and autonomy; history of medical and psychiatric accounts of homesickness; memories and the many precarious ways in which they can be recovered; landscapes of longing and geographies of desire; utopianism and imagined futures; solastalgia and our disorientation at being confronted by the acceleration of environmental change; non-western nostalgia. We want the scope of our conference to be bold, far reaching and open to a diversity of approaches and interpretations, both thematically and chronologically. The kind of nostalgic yearning on which we would like to focus our attention is associated with mindful reflection, seen as way of enriching our thinking of human and non-human experiences of time. While featuring keynote addresses, the conference invites speakers interested in the event’s themes through a call for papers. Applicants should send a title, an abstract of about 250-500 words, either in English or in Italian, name, affiliation and contact details to the following email addresses: [email protected]; [email protected] The deadline for submission is 15 June 2026. Successful applicants will be notified by 15 July 2026.