How does society adjust to the speed of new media? With the spread of digital technologies it often seems too much information is coming at us too quickly today. Perhaps this explains the recent growth of initiatives to resist speed like slow food and slow art. But can we really resist acceleration and live better simply by slowing down? It’s a difficult question, but not a new problem.
This webinar locates a similar sense of acceleration in Britain circa 1800 when the dramatically increased output of books and newspapers complemented by the increased mobility of new coaching systems and, eventually, the railway moved print and people across more territory at greater speeds. But like the “Slow Movement” today, many Romantic poets like William Wordsworth, John Keats, and Charlotte Smith were skeptical about the increasing speeds at which people and information traveled. How do we understand the value placed on slow time in this work: is it merely reactive to the acceleration of contemporary life or does it reveal an undercurrent of potentially slower experiences, like reading and walking, that are also fundamental to the modern sense of time?