Rethinking Darkness : Cultures, Histories, Practices
- Submitting institution
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The University of Lancaster
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 280838621
- Type
- B - Edited book
- DOI
-
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- Publisher
- Routledge
- ISBN
- 9780367201159
- Open access status
- -
- Month of publication
- October
- Year of publication
- 2020
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
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- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
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- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- Yes
- Number of additional authors
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1
- Research group(s)
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- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- The relationship with light and dark is fundamental to our regular social patterns and rhythms, shaping how most of us make sense of and engage with the world. This edited book addresses a significant knowledge gap on these social temporalities across the arts, humanities and social sciences. The originality of the research is in bringing together engagements with darkness from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds, empirical studies and theoretical perspectives to establish a new multi- and interdisciplinary field of inquiry.
The global perspectives collected in the book make it significant in its scope by providing a major expansion of the range and depth of research on the subject of darkness outside of dominant Western views. In addition to commissioning and editing the sixteen contributors’ chapters, the editors have also authored two major chapters as introduction and afterword. These two chapters set out new thinking to develop a novel paradigm for research across four distinct themes: histories of the dark; cultural practices of the dark; sensing darkness; and designing with darkness. In the introductory chapter, an extensive literature review is conducted to establish a rigorous intellectual platform for the subject and provide new critiques that challenge prevailing conceptions, meanings and values of darkness. The afterword draws together the key contributions of the collection to identify new trajectories for future research to enrich this emerging field. By bringing these new and important perspectives on darkness together the research demonstrates how and why developing a much more nuanced and critical understanding of the subject is key to addressing significant creative, environmental and social issues. In recognition of the work Dunn has undertaken to bring this topic to a variety of audiences around the globe, he was appointed as an official advocate by the International Dark-Sky Association (October 2020).
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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