Ernest Bernbaum Professor of Comparative Literature
Title | Nostalgias of the Future: The Materiality of Memory in Solaris and New York 2140
Abstract | In The Future of Nostalgia, Svetlana Boym writes that “at first glance, nostalgia is a longing for a place, but actually it is a yearning for a different time – the time of our childhood.” Science fiction adds a new temporal dimension, a prospective nostalgia set in a distant future. This talk will compare Russian and American nostalgias as seen in the varied ways objects carry memory in Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris and Kim Stanley Robinson’s New York 2140.
4.21.2026
Founded as a graduate program in 1904 and joining with the undergraduate Literature Concentration in 2007, Harvard’s Department of Comparative Literature operates at the crossroads of multilingualism, literary study, and media history.
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