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Chrononostalgia


In The Physics of Sorrow, Georgi Gospodinov introduces the concept of chrononostalgia, a longing not for a specific time or place but for the very experience of time itself—its passage, rhythms, and cycles. This idea shifts the focus of nostalgia from spatial longing to temporal loss, emphasizing the profound emotional impact of time’s movement. Unlike conventional nostalgia, which yearns for a particular moment, chrononostalgia addresses the loss of duration in time as a whole, offering a lens through which to challenge the chronologies of domination imposed by the suspension and collapse of time characteristic of presentism.