Digressions in Deep Time: Ecocritical Approaches to Literature and the Arts

“Deep time” is a term which attempts to capture temporal scales far beyond human comprehension. These are stretches of time epitomised by geological and cosmic scale processes, vast enough to make the entirety of human existence appear as little more than a footnote. The past few years have seen a boom in texts dedicated to the study of deep time, extending across a broad range of disciplines which fall markedly outside of its geological roots. These studies are unified by two ideas in particular: that deep time thinking and ecocriticism should be considered in conjunction, and that literature and the arts play a vital role in fostering a deep time awareness. Digressions in Deep Time is the first collection of essays which considers the multifarious representations of deep time across literature and the arts, assembling the work of a wide range of prominent scholars whose research frequently engages with temporality and ecocriticism. Featured contributions include work by the Pulitzer-prize winning author John McPhee, who popularised the term deep time in the late seventies, as well as chapters by Richard Irvine (author of An Anthropology of Deep Time), Benjamin Morgan (author of The Outward Mind) and Andrew Tate (author of Apocalyptic Fiction).

Table of Contents:
Table of Contents Acknowledgments Introduction: “To Brood Upon These Magnitudes”: A Digression on Deep Time in Literature and the Arts Declan Lloyd Part 1: Deep Time Poetics Introductory Keynote: Deep Time Poetics Andrew Tate Chapter 1: The Horizons of Time: A Psycholinguistic Exploration of Spatiotemporal Metaphor in Recent Studies of Deep Time Emil Tangham Hazelhurst Chapter 2: Deep Time Trauma and Dantean Salvation in T. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets Warren Mortimer Chapter 3: “That Huge and Microscopic Career of Time”: William Carlos Williams’s Time-Lapse Poetics Sean Keck Chapter 4: Deep Time Necrodidactics: Poetics and Pedagogy of the Anthropocene Roger Davis Chapter 5: “Through the Vista of Geologic Time”: Literary Naturalism and the Ecological Sublime in the Writings of John Burroughs Stephen Mercier Part 2: Deep Time Narratives Introductory Keynote: Pasts and Futures Present: Deep Time as Historical Narrative Benjamin Morgan Chapter 6: Deep Time in J. G. Ballard, or the “New Man” in the Mesh of Life Joel Evans Chapter 7: “Curlew or Curfew. You Choose”: Nature, Politics, and Deep Time in Ali Smith’s Seasonal Series Flora Sagers Chapter 8: The Call of the Void: Deep Time in the Early Science Fiction of H. G. Wells and Isaac Asimov William Nolen Chapter 9: Deep History and the Pursuit of Pure Origins in the Work of William Faulkner and Cormac McCarthy Bernard Joy Chapter 10: The Great “Enmuddening”: Deep Time in Classical Antiquity and the Example of Xenophanes James Calvin Taylor Part 3: Deep Time Aesthetics Introductory Keynote: The Concealment of Deep Time Richard Irvine Chapter 11: Visualizing Deep Time: Environmental Narratives and Temporal Spatialization in EcoComix and Graphic Novels Anthony Enns Chapter 12: Art in One Million Years: Deep Time Aesthetics through Deleuze’s Material Notions of Time Jakub Zdebik Chapter 13: Architectures of Critical Mass: Expressions of Deep Time in Contemporary Design Practice Maria Gloria Robalino Chapter 14: Gamifying Deep Time: Archeogaming and the Anthropocene in the Horizon Franchise Sarah Wagstaffe A Q&A with John McPhee Afterword: The Deep Time Sublime Declan Lloyd and Warren Mortimer Index About the Editors, Keynotes and Contributors