After a bit of a hiatus, I'm pleased that a number of publications from various projects and activities are now available.

The first this year is a chapter in the CRESC-inspired collection Speaking for the Social: A Catalogue of Methods available open access from the wonderful Punctum Books. It was a real pleasure to work with Temporal Design colleagues Larissa Pschetz and PhD researcher Ryan Bowler to reflect on a number of events and projects undertaken under the Temporal Design banner to explore how they challenge how we talk with 'the public' about time, and indeed what kinds of questions they can explore and challenge. Some of this thinking was in response to the UK consultation on the debates around removing the leap second from UTC, and the deference given to technical experts rather than opening wider questions about the possibility of discussing time.

Pschetz, L., Bastian, M., Bowler, R. (2022) Revealing social infrastructures of time. In eds. Knox, H, John, G Speaking for the Social: A Catalogue of Methods Punctum Books. pp255-293 Published Version [PDF]

Next, with support from the Independent Social Research Foundation, I have been working on a new project on phenology, the scientific study of lifecycle timing in plants, animals, fungi and others! In collaboration with Rowan Bayliss Hawitt, a PhD reseracher I'm working with here at the University of Edinburgh, we produced a scoping study of reserach on phenology from within the humanities. We wrote this up, and also included a series of discussions and examples to explore how a focus on phenology could open up a range of fascinating avenues for researach in environmental humanities in general, but also areas such as critical plant studies and extinction studies.

Bastian, M., & Bayliss Hawitt, R. (2022). Multi-species, ecological and climate change temporalities: Opening a dialogue with phenology. Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/25148486221111784

Most recent is another co-authored project on The Material LIfe of Time conference, the 2nd international conference of the Temporal Belongings network. After running our first event in person in Edinburgh, we decided in 2019 to move the event online in response to the growing demand for universities to reduce the built in carbon costs that come from business as usual. Recognising that one of the most common critiques of the online conference often comes in the form of the cry 'but what about the coffee break?!', we decided to tackle the problem of online sociality head on. Our first set of reflections on this are now available from Geo: Geography and Environment.

Bastian, M., Flatø, E.H., Baraitser, L., Jordheim, H., Salisbury, L. & van Dooren, T. (2022) ‘What about the coffee break?’ Designing virtual conference spaces for conviviality. Geo: Geography and Environment, 9, e00114. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1002/geo2.114

Phenomenal Time: perceiving ecological temporalities
An Edinburgh Environmental Humanities Network online seminar series
Generously supported by the Independent Social Research Foundation and the Edinburgh College of Art

It has become a truism that time is intangible, something that escapes our everyday senses. And yet,  we find a wide range of calls within the Environmental Humanities (EH) to reconsider the conceptions of time that guide our understandings of process, coordination and social change.  Anna Tsing (2015), for example, identifies ideologies of progress as particularly detrimental for efforts to cultivate ‘arts of attention’, proposing frameworks where time is multiple, interconnected and multi-directional.  Here we are able to ‘look around’ for alternative possibilities rather than narrow ideas of what ‘lies ahead’.

Others, however, have worried that a needed reorientation within time is hampered by a lack of awareness of other possibilities. Kyle Powys Whyte (2021) has recently challenged discourses of speed and haste in relation to climate change mitigation, which reinstate colonial processes of land dispossession, arguing instead for the responsibilities inherent within ‘kinship time’. We might also think of geologist Marcia Bjornerud, who has argued that humanity is in the grip of ‘chronophobia’ (2018), unwilling to truly understand the scale of geological time and suffering from a dangerous temporal illiteracy as a result. Other avenues for approaching temporal issues such as the ecological study of phenology, or the study of timing in plants and animals, have not yet been explored by EH scholars for their possibilities.

This seminar series takes up the problem of how to conceive of alternative temporal frameworks through the problem of perception. How might we challenge the idea that time is intangible and instead foster an understanding of the ways time can be sensed in myriad ways within our environments? Our focus will be the work of scholars, artists, designers and practitioners who are exploring the question of "what is time?" from an ecological perspective, and how to encourage wider awareness of the ways these times appear in our everyday lives. A particular focus for us will be building connections with the field of phenology, drawing it into conversation with the arts and humanities.

Each seminar will be hosted online via Zoom, with opportunities for informal discussion afterwards in SpatialChat. They will generally take place on Thursdays 1-2pm UK Time, with any changes noted below. Use this form to register: https://forms.office.com/r/peiLhVsc25
 
Semester One 2021
30 September Adam Barrows (Carleton University, Canada) Phenology, Rhythm, and Narrative Theory
 
14 October Rupert Griffiths (Lancaster University, UK) Time in the Anthropocene: Decentring the human through creative practice and environmental observation
                            
28 October Elisabeth Schøyen Jensen (University of Bergen) The Primstav exercise - an engaging and creative way to draw, think and talk about local seasons and climate adaptation
 
11 November Kate Wersan (Savanna Institute) Transforming Agricultural Temporalities in the US Midwest

25 November Laura Denning (Artist) & Deepta Sateesh (Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology) Temporal Wanderings - tactics for an embodied methodology

16 December Samantha Chisholm Hatfield (Oregon State University) Phenology and Traditional Ecological Knowledge NB: This seminar will be at 3pm UK time, with solstice celebrations after!

Semester Two 2022
27 January  Carolyn Fornoff (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) Timescales and Simultaneity in Contemporary Mexican Environmental Rewriting

3 February Bismark Ofosu-Bamfo (University of Energy and National Resources, Sunyani, Ghana) Phenology in Africa: Better late than never!
 
10 February Angela Impey (SOAS) Remote and Intimate Sensing: Ethno-ornithology, climate change, and the soundworlds of the Africa-Eurasia flyways
 
CANCELLED DUE TO STRIKES 17 February Elaine Gan (New York University) Doing Difference Differently: Recurrence in California Rice Fields
 
3 March Joshua Trey Barnett (Penn State University) A Time to Mourn: How Phenology Sets Our Ecological Grief Into Motion
 
17 March Sarah Dimick (Harvard University) Entwined Practices: Phenology and American Nature Writing
 
31 March Rebecca Hosking (Farmer), Ann Filemyr (Southwestern College) & Elizabeth Oriel (SOAS) Rhythm as Interdependence within Natureculture Relations and as Frames for Ecocultural Regeneration

14 April (RESCHEDULED) Elaine Gan (New York University) Doing Difference Differently: Recurrence in California Rice Fields

Supported by: