Cruel Nostalgia and Covid-19

Abstract

This chapter argues that the mobilisation of the memory of the Second World War in the context of Covid-19 and Brexit is cruel nostalgia. Based in an affective politics, cruel nostalgia is a form of ‘collective postmemory’ which dominates the cultural imaginary and displaces other narrative frames. It invokes an ersatz version of wartime shared national anxiety which serves to cover up differences in race, class, gender and age; further, it damages an effective politics of subsidiarity and works to prevent more innovative forms of response.