Explorations in Time and Temporality

A Public Humanities Project by the Geoffrion Family Fellows at Miami University’s Humanities Center 2019-2020

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Welcome to the website for the Geoffrion Fellows’ public humanities project, a part of the Altman Program within Miami University’s Humanities Center. The Altman Program brings together distinguished faculty, guest speakers, and undergraduate and graduate students to participate in a year-long discussion and research project on a salient topic. For the 2019-2020 academic year, the Altman lecture series is focused on “Time and Temporality.” 

We interviewed various experts in an attempt to illuminate interdisciplinary perspectives on the nature of time, how we think about it, and our place in it. This website includes their interviews curated into podcasts that attempt to put them in conversation. We’d like to extend our thanks to the Humanities Center, all of our speakers, and the Altman Fellows.

Jonathan Crary

 

JONATHAN CRARY
Resetting the Clocks in a 24/7 World
Dr. Jonathan Crary, professor of Art History at Columbia University, discusses the intersection of capitalist pressures with human temporality.
16:39

 

Jack Halberstam

 

JACK HALBERSTAM
Queer Temporality
Dr. Jack Halberstam, Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, discusses queer temporality and how to critique the problematic elements of dominant temporality.
12:06

 

Marcia Bjornerud

 

MARCIA BJORNERUD
Geologic Time in Action
Dr. Marcia Bjornerud, Professor of Geology and Environmental Studies at Lawrence University, discusses geologic time and its applications in thinking about societal issues.
23:00

 

Matthew Burtner

 

MATTHEW BURTNER
Musical Temporalities of Climate Change
Dr. Matthew Burtner, composer of the world’s first climate change opera and creator of several “ecoacoustic” instruments, describes how musical time can help humans understand and appreciate their environment.
27:27

 

Jenann Ismael

 

JENANN ISMAEL
Time and the Visual Imagination – From Physics to Philosophy
Dr. Jenann Ismael from Columbia University discusses the construction of space and temporality.
14:40

 

Pheng Cheah

 

PHENG CHEAH
Diasporic Time in World Literature
Dr. Pheng Cheah, Professor of Rhetoric at the University of California Berkeley discusses his research on diasporic temporality in a cosmopolitan world.
20:30

 

Temporal Responsibility

 

TEMPORAL RESPONSIBILITY
How does our generation have a responsibility to think about time and temporality?
This episode is a compilation of responses to the above question, putting all of our interviewees in conversation with one another on how we can become more aware of time and temporality in our lives.
15:21