-
Michael Northcott (University of Edinburgh): ‘The Ethical Implications of Different Deep Time Eschatologies among Scottish Christian Environmental Activists’
Abstract: Interviewees in the Ancestral Time project reveal a range of beliefs about the enchantment of life on earth and the deep future of life. Some believe that all life forms are enchanted because they are part of a divine eschatology in which ‘all things’ are brought together into an ultimate redemptive future. This […]
Continue reading -
Bronislaw Szerszynski (Lancaster University): ‘Gods of the Anthropocene: human and inhuman agencies in the Earth’s new epoch’
The term ‘the Anthropocene’ seems to evoke the idea of an ‘Age of Humanity’ in which the planet – and perhaps eventually the cosmos – becomes a mere echo chamber in which the Anthropos, the human being, becomes the only source and telos of agency. Yet as a name for the emerging new stage […]
Continue reading -
Sarah May (University College London): ‘Futures of Safety and Adventure, (Re)Enchanting the Future’
What do we mean when we say forever? Natural and cultural heritage management policies concern themselves with conserving and preserving things ‘for future generations’. But the future as a great unknown sits uneasily with the management practices that underpin those policies. The futures that are created are primarily concerned with security. In this way […]
Continue reading -
Martin Philip (University of Edinburgh/The Open University): ‘Curling reality: progress on thin ice’
Last weekend brought the third indoor Grand Match staged by the Royal Caledonian Curling Club. The last outdoor version was held on the Lake of Menteith in 1979 but since then a warming climate has led to insufficient thickness of ice. The modern indoor version of the sport is played on ice pads which […]
Continue reading -
Katy Ewing (University of Glasgow): ‘Writing about Corncockle’
My own recent experience with deep time was in a return to a place from my past in order to write a place-based piece of prose. The place was linked to vivid memories from my childhood: a ‘tip’ or dump attached to an amazing old sandstone quarry a few miles from where we lived […]
Continue reading -
Osbert Lancaster (osbert.org/University of Edinburgh): ‘A Story of Deep Time in Practice’
Several years ago, while training as a facilitator of learning experiences in wild places, I spent a day alone from dawn until dusk, staying within a couple of square meters. I was present in this place in the land with few distractions. No watch, no phone, no camera, no […]
Continue reading -
Alan MacPherson (University of Aberdeen): ‘Art – Trees – Walking – Rocks: Deep Time Enchantment in Huntly, Aberdeenshire’
In April 2010 Hamish Fulton undertook a walk: ‘A 21 DAY WALK 20 NIGHTS CAMPING // FROM HUNTLY SQUARE TO GLENMORE LODGE’ at the behest of Deveron Arts, a socially engaged arts organisation based in Huntly, Aberdeenshire. The artist book which emerged as a result of this walk, Fulton titled Mountain Time Human Time. […]
Continue reading -
Christine Hansen (University of Gothenburg): ‘The Politics of Time in a Fire Zone’
Introduction to the Workshop Buried in recent discussions around the escalating threat of fire emergencies in Australia is a hidden and ‘haunted’ historical disjuncture that contains a political echo from the colonial past. Contemporary communities struggling for a language within which to understand their experience of devastating bushfires form narratives around the tropes of […]
Continue reading -
Deep Time & Enchantment Keynote: Prof Libby Robin (Australian National University/National Museum of Australia): ‘Cabinets of Curiosity: Objects of Strange Change’
In today’s museums and artworks, in digital and other public spaces, we are seeing again the ‘cabinets of curiosities’ that used to a mark of public culture in the 1500s. Some, but not all are presented as formal cabinets, like the Wunderkammer of the pre-Enlightenment era. What is the significance of curious objects for […]
Continue reading -
CFP: Unexpected Encounters with Deep Time – Enchantment
Call for Papers: Unexpected Encounters with Deep Time: Enchantment Thursday, 26th November 2015 Andrew Grant Lecture Theatre, Evolution House, West Port, Edinburgh College of Art Organised by the Edinburgh Environmental Humanities Network ****Deadline for CFP extended to the 26th of October**** Earlier this year the discovery of homo naledi propelled enchantment into a framework of […]
Continue reading