The 2023 Longyear Award

2023 Longyear Winner - Stephen Davis Turner

“Music, (Anti)Nostalgia, and the Myth of American Domesticity in Twin Peaks,” is a portion of my research that develops the notion of ‘anti-nostalgia,’ or the experience of remembering the past with a sense of disillusion instead of fondness or desire. Drawing on nostalgia studies, queer theory, psychoanalytic theory, media studies, and archival research, this paper shows how music shapes audiences’ perceptions of a national past. Ultimately, my research demonstrates how Twin Peaks, through its score, attempts to elicit nostalgia, while failing to conceal the narrative’s trauma. In other words, the score contributes to how the broader text reveals how nostalgia is merely a veil that hides disturbing facts about the past from viewers in the present. My research contributes to a growing body of scholarship on television music, media and cultural studies, and Twin Peaks.