Michelle Bastian

Time, and the way it shapes our societies, has been at the centre of my research since 2005. I explore how time privileges some communities, while oppressing many more. A key question for me is how changing times can change worlds. I am suspicious of charismatic time concepts like long-term, slow, and deep time, and have argued for more pluralistic understandings of how we can address social and environmental problems via a temporal lens.

My work combines perspectives from continental philosophy, time studies, environmental humanities, art and design, and global histories of time-keeping. Currently, I'm working on two main projects, a monograph on creative horology called Dear Time: How to Make Clocks We Could Love, and a field philosophy of seasonal timing (phenology) addressing the ways that ecosystem timekeeping is shifting with climate breakdown.

I enjoy drawing out the implications of time across a wide range of topics, with academic publications in venues ranging from fashion journals to astrophysics conference proceedings, and much inbetween. Building the community of time scholars has been central to my career, including developing the international Temporal Belongings network and acting as the Editor in Chief for Time & Society (SAGE) from 2018 – 2025. With Larissa Pschetz leading, I have contributed to the development of Temporal Design, an approach that highlights the role of design in shaping the time of our lives.

Interdiscplinary methodology has been another focus, including as editor of collections like Field Philosophy and Other Experiments (Parallax) and Participatory Research in More-than-Human Worlds (Routledge).