The latest book by Assistant Research Professor of International Affairs Vincent Ialenti was recently featured in an article in Science Magazine. The book, Deep Time Reckoning, chronicles Dr. Ialenti's observations in Finland between 2012 and 2014 among the employees of Posiva. Posiva is a nuclear waste management firm charged with the demonstration that nuclear waste could be contained with no threat for future generations, and based on his observations, Dr. Ialenti offers practical strategies for lengthening the time horizons of environmental governance. Nurturing societal time-literacy, he argues, is increasingly vital as our planet's ecological crisis is complicated by a deflation of public enthusiasm for liberal arts education and science.
Dr. Ialenti is an anthropologist who studies the cultures of nuclear waste experts in Northern Europe and the United States. His research has been supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, and the MacArthur Foundation. He has published in Social Studies of Science, the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Physics Today, and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. He holds a PhD in Sociocultural Anthropology from Cornell University.
Deep Time Reckoning was published by MIT Press in September 2020. Watch a recording of Dr. Ialenti's virtual book launch via the official Elliott School Youtube channel.