Nostalgia and Childhood

Nostalgia has often been related to childhood. Commonplace ideas of nostalgia tend to frame the emotion as an unproblematic return to childhood engineered by the sensual encounter with a given object in the present. This veneration of childhood is also evident in some theoretical methods, not least phenomenology which tends to valorise childhood as an authentic mode of being. But articulating exactly what is at stake in this relationship between nostalgia and childhood is not obvious. In this chapter, I consider the relationship between nostalgia and childhood in two ways. First, I conduct a phenomenological analysis of the concept of childhood itself. In the process, I argue that the concept of “world” is critical to understanding childhood. Second, I argue that the notion of reverie can play an explanatory role in accounting for the intentional structure of childhood nostalgia. Third, I consider how childhood nostalgia is given expression through specific objects as well as atmospheres. Finally, I reflect on the affective tonality of childhood specifically within the context of strangeness.