Yesterday's Self: Nostalgia and the Immigrant Identity (Philosophy and the Global Context) - Tapa blanda

Ritivoi's insights in Yesterday's Self are brilliant, groundbreaking, and profoundly correct. I am especially impressed with her literally beautiful and beautifully literary use of personal stories. One doesn't usually find such sensitivity or rich description in discussions of identity, at least not in philosophical discussions. -- Thomas E. Wren, Loyola University, Chicago In this interesting and well-written book, Ritivoi makes a significant contribution to our understanding of immigration, memory, and nostalgia. * Sociology * Yesterday's Self offers a lively and profound investigation of a slippery condition that is nonetheless ubiquitous in this age of mobility and displacement. It is a great pleasure to read a scholarly inquiry that is readable, lively, and fresh. Ritivoi has brought into English, with scholarly brio, the Romanian word 'dor,' and given it an amplitude that it never had beyond its balkan world. -- Andrei Codrescu, NPR columnist and editor of the online literary journal Exquisite Corpse

In Yesterday's Self, Andreea Ritivoi explores the philosophical and historical dimensions of nostalgia in the lives of immigrants, forging a connection between current trends in the philosophy of identity and intercultural studies. The book considers such questions as, Does attachment to one's native culture preclude or merely influence adaptation into a new culture? Do we fashion our identity in interdependence with others, or do we shape it in a non-contingent frame? Is it possible to assimilate in an unfamiliar world without risking self-alienation? Ritivoi's response: nostalgia is both the poison and the cure in such situations.