Why the past never gets old in ever-changing societies

It is our great pleasure to invite you to the final assessment presentation by Tenure Track Assistant Professor Manuel Menke, followed by a reception hosted by the department. 

Manuel has been a Tenure Track Assistant Professor at the department since 2020 and is currently going through the assessment for promotion to the rank of associate professor. The presentation is given as a part of the process and is the last presentation before the assessment committee will make their final evaluation.

We hope you will join us as we celebrate Manuel and this important milestone in his career. 

Abstract

It does not take long to find the past in mass media coverage, social media discourses, political campaigns, and mediated everyday communication; and in all these contexts, we—as individuals, communities, and societies—try to explain to ourselves and negotiate with others how we became who we are today and how we envision the future based on our past. In my talk, I want to outline how the past has become a vibrant and contested discursive field of identity-making often built around the narrative of ever-changing societies in crisis. Thus, I will present insights from my research on the uses of nostalgia, memory, and history in digital discourses. Based on several cases, I will demonstrate how the past is used by citizens in an attempt to cope with change but has also been utilized by populists and the culture industry to evoke and profit from exploitable yearnings.