There is a tension in American culture between narratives about what America was, is, and can be. How does this tension between nostalgia for the past, discomfort in the present, and hope for the future affect individuals or interpersonal dynamics?
This piece coins the term “solastalgia,” a portmanteau of the words “solace” and “desolation,” arguing that the rapid pace of change, often a negative one, in our natural and built environments taints our sense of home with a kind of homesickness, even if we have not left that place.
In this short opinion piece, Gulati questions why and with what consequences we focus on documenting our experiences, rather than simply experiencing our lives.
Criticizes a clock being built in a Texas mountain on the grounds that it distracts from the dangers of the present moment, including climate change and wealth inequality.
Gives a short introduction to the newly coined word “solastalgia,” which expresses the
unease felt as the natural environment around us changes for the worse.
A look at the parenting trend of limiting childrens’ access to technology as a “red flag” for the addictive, harmful nature of digital devices, apps, and habits.
Historical sources about American identity - Questions 4 & 5
Here’s the prototypical “American” schedule and goal-setting, which filtered into common understandings of American identity and may have influenced young James Gatz.
From "Go West." Gast and Greeley are two primary sources that flesh out the mythic role the “West” and a “frontier mentality” play in American Identity.
In this excerpt of Herbert Hoover’s 1928 presidential campaign speech, the candidate asserts his belief that American success is based on “rugged individualism” and “self-reliance,” an ideological position that continues to correspond to conservative or Republican thought.
A 17th-c preacher on the earliest ship that establishes the Massachusetts Bay Colony coins the phrase “City on a Hill,” a way of understanding America’s identity in the world that has become short-handed as the mythic conception of American Exceptionalism.
