Television, memory, and nostalgia
By: Amy Holdsworth
Series: Palgrave Macmillan memory studies
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Published: 2011
Place of publication: Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire; New York, NY
Language: eng
Number of pages: 173
ISBN-13: 9780230245983
Subjects: Memory on television; PERFORMING ARTS / Television / History & Criticism; Television; SOCIAL SCIENCE / Media Studies; Nostalgia on television; SOCIAL SCIENCE / Popular Culture; PERFORMING ARTS / Television / General; Psychological aspects; Identity (Psychology) on television
Description: Often characterised by its 'transience' and 'ephemerality', and even more seriously, seen as an 'amnesiac', television's relationship with both memory and nostalgia has long been neglected and ignored. An innovative and original new study, Television, Memory and Nostalgia re-imagines the relationship between the medium and its forms of memory and remembrance through a series of case studies of British and North American programmes and practices. These include the role of memory in serial dramas ER, Grey's Anatomy and The Wire, an investigation of the family history format Who Do You Think You Are?, forms of nostalgia television including the US and UK versions of Life on Mars, and a study of television's material cultures in both the home and the museum. Offering new conceptual and analytical insights into television, the book considers not only the role of television in the constitution of contemporary memory cultures, but the role of memory and nostalgia in the operation of specific television cultures as well.
Notes: Based on the author's thesis (doctoral)--University of Warwick.

Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction; title: Half the World Away: Television, Space, Time and Memory; title: Haunting the Memory: Moments of Return in Television Drama; title: Who Do You Think You Are? Memory and Identity in the Family History Documentary; title: Safe Returns: Nostalgia and Television; title: Television's Afterlife: Memory, the Museum and Material Culture.