Tracking the rhythms, cycles, and ruptures of collective life is essential for studies of sociocultural and environmental dynamics. Yet such studies are mostly undertaken with the unquestioned assumption that Western apparatuses of time reckoning and historical periodization can be applied as universal and stable frames of reference for all kinds of phenomena. Temporal units of years, months, days, minutes are used, rendering insensible relations that do not align with such metrics. These simplifying moves limit our capacity to sense and understand continuity and change; they place many lives and landscapes at risk. This course draws from the social and ecological sciences, humanities, and arts to reimagine such simplifications. Through readings, creative exercises, and field trips, students are invited to notice, record, and engage with multiple temporalities of more-than-human worlds. For final projects, students will research and design speculative timekeeping devices or time machines for worlds otherwise. |