Special section: Vintage

guest edited by Kim Knowles

Locating vintage by Kim Knowles

A theoretical approach to vintage: From oenology to media by Katharina Niemeyer

Technostalgia of the present: From technologies of memory to a memory of technologies by Tim van der Heijden

The way we watched: Vintage television programmes, memories, and memorabilia by Helen Piper

Retro, faux-vintage, and anachronism: When cinema looks back by Stefano Baschiera and Elena Caoduro

No time like the past?: On the new role of vintage and retro in the magazines Scandinavian Retro and Retro Gamer by Kristian Handberg

Death, beauty, and iconoclastic nostalgia: Precarious aesthetics and Lana Del Rey by Arild Fetveit

NECSUS editorial board:

Vintage is everywhere. Ranging from vintage design to vintage cloths and vintage media, in our contemporary culture ‘the old rebranded as new’ and ‘the new rebranded as old’ are a striking phenomenon – but what kind of relationship to or longing for the past does ‘vintage’ indicate? Retro nostalgia and other memory practices that can be observed in media culture today constantly redefine our relation to the past, present, and future. Guest editor Kim Knowles has composed a special section on ‘Vintage’ with interesting contributions related to vintage as a critical theoretical tool to investigate salient aspects of contemporary media culture. This special section hopes to contribute to a theory of vintage that stretches across different media and to map out the theoretical, historical, sociological, and aesthetic foundations for understanding vintage as a vital part of contemporary culture.