Developing ‘Glacial Time’ in the Informational Era : Poetics and Politics of Post-War Neopastoral
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Year of publication | 2015 |
Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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Description | The notion of ‘Glacial Time’ as originally employed in a sociological context by Scott Lash and John Urry, figures in Manuel Castells' The Age of Information (1996–2000) trilogy as being distinct, in its long-term perspective on time, both from traditionally modern ‘clock time’ and the ‘timeless time’ of the currently dominant informational culture. This paper seeks to connect Castells' distinction partly to specific characterisations of ‘environmental criticism’ (as distinct from ‘eco-criticism’, originating with Lawrence Buell's The Environmental Imagination (1995) and the ‘neopastoral’ as presented by the Canadian environmental theorist and critic Andrew McMurry, in his autopoieitic systems-theory based study Environmental Renaissance (2003), as well as to observations on the relevance of twentieth century process philosophy to environmental thinking in the work of the Australian cultural philosopher Arran Gare and, finally to specific literary deployments of ‘glacial time’ in Anglophone poetry and prose as represented by aspects of the work of the American poet Charles Olson (1910-1970), the British poet J.H. Prynne (1936-), and the Australia-based British cultural historian Paul Carter (1951-). |
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