Machinology

This might interest many of you: a conference at UPenn on Timescales. Organised by the Penn Program in Environmental Humanities, the event promises to talk about much more than just the term Anthropocene and to address the multiple temporalities that constitute our contemporary condition.

To quote the CFP:

“Ecological crises demand collaborative solutions across distant disciplines. New models for grappling with environmental disruption must account for the interaction of human and non-human systems—infrastructures that are both efficient and ethical, philosophies shaped by geological data, basic science that is informed by artistic expression. In recent decades, concepts like “Anthropocene” and “slow violence” have emerged in response to an increasing need to address the temporal aspects of global ecological concerns: Where in time do we place the origin of anthropogenic environmental change? How quickly (or slowly) do environments toxify, adapt, transform, or heal? How soon before we exceed irrevocable concentrations of atmospheric CO2, and what then?”

I am excited to be invited as the keynote and please find the Call for Papers on the Conference website (deadline for submissions is on May 2nd).