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Gloomy Malaise? II: Re-evaluating Nostalgia and Sexuality in Literature and Cultural Studies

Session 4 - Saturday 3:00-4:30pm
Ching Hall 253
Presiding Officer: 
Erika Wright
Session Chair (if other than PO): 
Ruth Blandon
  1. "Take me home to Aunt Em!": Female Desire, Domesticity, and Nostalgia in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Erika Wright, University of Southern California

    This paper is part teaching case study, part literary analysis. It examines how L. Frank Baum’s rebellious, adventurous, desiring heroine challenges students’ conceptions of nostalgia as a longing for an idealized past.

  2. Phantasmal Glamour and Erotic Nostalgia in Breakfast at Tiffany's: Fiction, Film, and the Dorm Room Wall. Jeff Solomon, St. Olaf College

    This paper asserts that the appeal of the novella, the film, and the poster for Breakfast at Tiffany’s rests upon an unconscious nostalgia for a child’s misapprehension of adult sexuality, and a desire to embody the phantasmal desires embodied in playing dress-up.

  3. Nostalgia for Neverlands: Cult Films, Camp, and Cobra Woman. Greg Bills, University of Redlands

    Artist Jack Smith’s veneration in prose and film of 1940s film actress Maria Montez (Cobra Woman) reveals that within the camp sensibility lies a nostalgic desire for an invented world, an impossible past, where a queer community could recover a homeland unavailable in the unaccepting reality of 20th century America.

Session Type: 
Special Session
Session Status: 
Closed