Times of History, Times of Nature Temporalization and the Limits of Modern Knowledge

About this book

As climate change becomes an increasingly important part of public discourse, the relationship between time in nature and history is changing. Nature can no longer be considered a slow and immobile background to human history, and the future can no longer be viewed as open and detached from the past. Times of History, Times of Nature engages with this historical shift in temporal sensibilities through a combination of detailed case studies and synthesizing efforts. Focusing on the history of knowledge, media theory, and environmental humanities, this volume explores the rich and nuanced notions of time and temporality that have emerged in response to climate change.

Contents

List of illustrations
Introduction: Dividing Times / Staffan Bergwik and Anders Ekström

Part I: Eras of Synchronization
Chapter 1. Stratigraphies of Time and History: Beyond the Outrages upon Humanity's Self-Love / Helge Jordheim
Chapter 2. The Production and Distribution of Synchronized Time in Sweden, 1850-1914 / Gustav Holmberg
Chapter 3. Environmental Times: Synchronizing Human-Earth Temporalities from Annales to Anthropocene, 1920s to 2020s / Sverker Sörlin

Part II: Biocultural Times
Chapter 4. Forest Time and the Passions of Economic Man / Julia Nordblad
Chapter 5. Little Red Ring Binders: Early Red List Temporalities / Marit Ruge Bjærke
Chapter 6. Oil and Vikings: Temporal Alignments within Norwegian Petroleum Fields / Lise Camilla Ruud

Part III: Time-Binding Knowledges and Visual Genres
Chapter 7. Temporal Poetics of Planetary Transformations: Alexander von Humboldt and the Geo-Anthropological History of the Americas / Adam Wickberg Mansson
Chapter 8. Discovering Moravian History: The Many Times and Sources of an Unknown Land, c. 1830-1860 / Emma Hagström Molin
Chapter 9. Synchronising Nature and Culture: Mediating Time in Geochronology and Dendrochronology 1900-1945 / Staffan Bergwik

Part IV: Recording and Envisioning Climate Times
Chapter 10. On Record: Political Temperature and the Temporalities of Climate Change / Eric Paglia and Erik Isberg
Chapter 11. Model Time and Target Years: On the End of Time in IPCC Futures / Nina Wormbs
Chapter 12. Encountering the Geological Live: Temporalization in the Age of Natural Media / Anders Ekström

Conclusion / Staffan Bergwik and Anders Ekström

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Biography

Anders Ekström is a Professor at the Department of History of Science and Ideas at Uppsala University, Sweden. His most recent publications include a co-edited volume on the History of Participatory Media (Routledge, 2011), the article "Remediation, Time and Disaster", in Theory, Culture & Society 33(5) (2016), and a chapter for the Routledge Handbook of Museum Media and Communication (2019).

Staffan Bergwik is a Professor at the Department for Culture and Aesthetics, Stockholm University, Sweden. Recent international publications include the co-edited volume Domesticity in the Making of Modern Science (Palgrave MacMillan, 2015), and journal articles in Isis and Science in Context.