Stephanie Schuster studied Biogeography at the University of Trier and Philosophy, Nordic Philology and Anthropology at the University of Basel. Her Master’s thesis explores experiences of time in connection with aesthetic appreciation (Max-Fäh-Award 2019). Since September 2022, she is a member of the eikones Graduate School and recipient of a Doc.CH grant in Philosophy.

Nature and Time: A Contribution to Environmental Aesthetics

The PhD project is based on the assumption that the specific and multidimensional temporalities of natural spaces - their timescapes - invite to particular experiences of time in aesthetic appreciation. It makes a contribution to Environmental Aesthetics by examining these experiences of time systematically.

Besides the description of distinct aesthetic nature-time-experiences (including experiences of deep time, historical time, strong presence, future time, cyclical time, and other-than-human time scales), the research project aims at clarifying their significant eudaimonic meaning. They seem, among others, to contribute to a sense of antiquity, duration, presence, and continuity, to counteract the current processes of acceleration and desynchronization, and to excite valuable reflections on time. The analysis will, furthermore, consider landscape paintings which exemplify eudaimonic nature-time-experiences. Both dialectical relations as well as contrasting aspects of nature and art experience will be discussed.

In the context of the global destruction of nature, the project wants to contribute to a deeper understanding of the aesthetic value of natural environments and highlight the meaning of landscape painting for Environmental Aesthetics.