Join us for an evening withe Agnes Arnold-Forster, the author of Nostalgia, the dazzling biography of the most slippery of emotions.
In Nostalgia: A Biography, Agnes Arnold-Forster blends neuroscience and psychology with the history of medicine and emotions to explore the evolution of nostalgia from its first identification in seventeenth-century Switzerland (when it was held to be an illness that could, quite literally, kill you) to the present day (when it is co-opted by advertising agencies and politicians alike to sell us goods and policies).
Nostalgia is a social and political emotion, vulnerable to misuse, and one that reflects the anxieties of the age. It is one of the many ways we communicate a desire for the past, dissatisfaction with the present and our visions for the future. Arnold-Forster's fascinating history of this complex, slippery emotion is a lens through which to consider the changing pace of society, our collective feelings of regret, dislocation and belonging, the conditions of modern and contemporary work, and the politics of fear and anxiety. It is also a clear-eyed analysis of what we are doing now, how we feel about it and what we might want to change about the world we live in.
'Arnold-Forster belongs to that valuable non-jargon-spouting breed of academic who is capable of explaining complex ideas in simple language' - The Times
Don't forget to include a copy of Nostalgia with your ticket. There will be a book signing following the discussion. Join us from 18:00 for a welcome drink!
Dr Agnes Arnold-Forster has worked at McGill University, at the Centre for the History of Emotions at Queen Mary University of London and as a visiting researcher at the Max Planck Centre for Human Development in Berlin. She is the author of an academic history of cancer and has written widely for academic, medical and mainstream outlets. She has also appeared on BBC Radio, consulted for television dramas and documentaries, and worked closely with the Science Museum, the Wellcome Collection, and the Royal College of Nursing. She lives in London.
