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Daniel Smith

Media, University of Leicester

Thesis title:

Populist Nostalgia in Post-2008 British Film and Television

Formerly focusing on ‘populist nostalgia’ (title still in discussion to be altered), my doctoral research is now focused on the nostalgic sentiment that has emerged across the neoliberal world since the onset of the Global Financial Crisis, and how this can be read in the contexts of British film and television. Whilst populism still remains a crucial part of the discussion, I realised that this nostalgic sentiment I was interested in went beyond that. 

Instead, my focus turned to observations around the ‘why’ of this nostalgic upswell – locating it in the “lost futures” and difficulties with approaching non-hegemonic Histories that neoliberal logic has upheld, and likewise has exacerbated since the Global Financial Crisis via austerity measures and the trend towards denationalisation, privatisation, and the commodified ‘individual’. This is an approach influenced by the discussions of Mark Fisher, Jacques Derrida, Zygmunt Bauman, and Svetlana Boym – amongst many others. And whilst nostalgia remains a highly-discussed topic within contemporary film and television, especially in British, there is little general coverage on the phenomenon in specific relation to this post-GFC upswell.

As such, my thesis focuses on three texts – the Downton Abbey franchise (2010-onwards), The Great British Bake Off (2010-onwards), and Bait (dir. Mark Jenkin, 2019) – and how they navigate a relationship to this post-GFC nostalgic sentiment. Though far from the only way to categorise this sentiment, each text is distinguished via a focus on conservative (Downton Abbey), ‘anti-nostalgic’ (GBBO), and radical nostalgia (Bait). Emphasis on conservative and radical nostalgia seeks to place neoliberalism at the heart of this debate, by locating how each text’s nostalgic attachments respectively perpetuate and challenge the neoliberal order. ‘Anti-nostalgic’ nostalgia is covered here as a way to address those sentiments which express nostalgia but in a way that attempts to eschew the falsely negative accusations that nostalgia holds – and as such, perform an act of denialism which aligns it with conservative nostalgia. This approach allows these texts to take on not just a reflective or representational quality, but an actively agentive one. 

This research is grounded in the broader philosophies of post-structuralism and anti-neoliberalism – whilst likewise taking cues from areas such as postcolonial studies, affect theory, formalism, and media archaeology. Within the disciplines, my thesis touches upon the studies of genre and ‘heritage’, reality television, transnational media, media production, aesthetics, and intersectional media.


Research Area

  • Film History, Theory and Criticism
  • Media

Conferences

'Imperial Wonder Boy: Benedict Cumberbatch, Imperial Masculinity, and British Film & TV Nostalgia' @ Contemporary Class and UK Film and Television Conference 2022, 14:30 7th July 2022

'Neoliberalism, Austerity, and the Changing Role of "Excess" in British Period Dramas' @ Re-thinking Histories of Popular British Film and Television Conference 2023, 9:30 28th June 2023



Other Research Interests

  • Aesthetics and perceived obsolescence of creative technologies (e.g. media archaeology)
  • Neurodivergence in media
  • Radical political history and theory within creative contexts
  • Post-structuralist and formalist modes
  • Memory and media
  • Sincerity/modernism/transgression

Memberships

British Association of Film, Television, and Screen Studies (BAFTSS)

Education

MA Film and Film Culture, University of Leicester (2019)
BA Film Studies and the Visual Arts, University of Leicester (2015-2018)