This will be the fourth talk of the Oecologies Speaker Series at Green College at UBC.
Dr. Renisa Mawani
(Sociology, University of British Columbia)
“‘Rule Britannia! Rule the Waves’: The World of the Ship and the Quest for Global Time”
Abstract: Recent accounts of the creation and imposition of a global and standardized time – through nineteenth-century developments, most notably the railway and telegraph – have only reinforced the primacy of land. Written at the juncture of law, science studies, and empire, this talk shifts optics from land to sea, and in so doing tells a different history of global time that centres on the world of the ship and on imperial and maritime struggles over longitude. Ultimately, it argues that the standardization of time, to which naval navigation and the ship were central, formed a crucial register of British imperial governance.
Oecologies: Inhabiting Premodern Worlds is a new Speaker Series sponsored by Green College that gathers scholars from the humanities living and working along the North American Pacific coast to investigate the idea of “oecology,” an older spelling of the modern concept “ecology.” For event details, abstracts, and speaker information, please visit oecologies.com or view the event poster. Also follow us on Twitter (@Oecologies) and “Like” us on Facebook (facebook.com/oecologies)! If you have questions about Oecologies, please do not hesitate to contact Dr. Vin Nardizzi or the project assistant, Carmel Ohma
Times: 5-6:30pm, Wed Mar 26
Location: Coach House, Green College, UBC, 6201 Cecil green park road,
Vancouver BC, V6T 1Z1
