Nostalgia: When Are We Ever at Home?

It all starts with a poignant question: why, Barbara Cassin wonders, am I overcome with nostalgia as soon as I set foot in Corsica, even though I have no roots there? Perhaps it is because this island belongs to the Mediterranean, the sea of the Odyssey and the impossible return. In this investigation, accompanied by Ulysses, Aeneas and Hannah Arendt, the philosopher demonstrates, with multilingual erudition, that nostalgia is less a matter of soil than of native language.

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