Emilio Sierra García –
Desire and nostalgia in the digital age

Nostalgia is defined by the feeling of longing for something that has been lost, something that, whether known or unknown, generates a yearning to be able to recover it in some way. With regard to this subject, the role of memory and the truth of what is longed for is fundamental, as they constitute conditions without which there can be no verification, falsification, or acquisition of that for which nostalgia is felt. For all these reasons, to speak of nostalgia in the 21st century leads us to analyze the terms “truth” and “desire”. The society of the 21st century has been defined as the society of weariness (B. C. Han), the liquid society (Bauman), the lightweight society (Lipovesky), or the global village (McLuhan), but we can affirm that it is, above all, a society of nostalgia since what defines it, immersed in social consumerism, political utilitarianism, and moral relativism is above all the desire for happiness that, as an imperative of our world, is never achieved but rather longed for as a project and lost. The logic of consumption and capitalist productivity is shown in today’s music, films, and series in which happiness is shown as a product that can be acquired, but which we never fully appropriate. We make disappear and rediscover what we think we desire. M. Blondel’s analysis will help us understand the dynamics of desire and nostalgia in the digital age.

Biography:

Prof. D.Ph. Emilio Sierra García. Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Saint Damasus and a graduate in Theology from the same University. Collaborating professor at CEU San Pablo University (Madrid) and Tutor at the School of Philosophy (Madrid). His research interests include Contemporary aesthetics, Hermeneutics and religious experience, Phenomenological access to being, the mystery of evil and human suffering, and The unity and multidimensionality of human reason: expansion of reason as a theory of experience. In 2022 he participated in the international conference “Perspectives about truth” with the paper “About truth in a current sense. Relationship and interpretation in L. Pareyson” (20-21 June) at the Faculty of Human Sciences of the Polytechnic University of Bucharest (Romania); the 6th International Transdisciplinary Symposium “Bioethics and Aporia of Psyche” with the paper Genius and Madness. Art as the Source and Cause of Madness and Genius in the Philosophy of Language (4-5 May) in the Faculty of Philosophy and Religious Sciences (Zagreb); in the International conference “Digital worlds Workshop” with the presentation and dialogue on Homo Deus or Homo Datum? Prolegomena to a Phenomenology of Dataism by Professor A. Cera (Università Ferrara) (30 April) at the University of Rio Grande Valley (Texas); international congress On the Global Solidarity Crisis with the paper A phenomenological anthropology about the Pandemic (22-23 April) at the Faculty of Philosophy, Widya Mandala Catholic University Surabaya.