Dr Daniel Knight
Reader
- Phone
- +44 (0)1334 46 2985
- dmk3@st-andrews.ac.uk
- Office
- Room 20, School 6
- Location
- United Colleges
- Office hours
- Tuesday 12:30pm-2.30pm
Research areas
Books
2025 Energy Talk: Green Knowledge from Greece's Silicon Plains. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
2024 Porous Becomings: Anthropological Engagements with Michel Serres. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. (co-edited with Andreas Bandak).
2021 Vertiginous Life: An Anthropology of Time and the Unforeseen. New York, NY: Berghahn.
2019 The Anthropology of the Future. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (co-authored with Rebecca Bryant). Turkish Translation Gelecegin Antropolojisi. Ankara: FOL, 2024.
2017 Ethnographies of Austerity: Temporality, Crisis and Affect in Southern Europe. London: Routledge. ([with new Afterword], co-edited with Charles Stewart).
2015 History, Time, and Economic Crisis in Central Greece. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.
Edited Journal Collections
2023 Polycrisis. Anthropology Today 39(2). (with David Henig)
2022 The Vertiginous: Temporalities and Affects of Social Vertigo. Anthropological Theory Commons. (with Fran Markowitz and Martin Demant Frederiken)
2020 Emptiness. Cultural Anthropology, Theorizing the Contemporary. (with Dace Dzenovska)
2019 Orientations to the Future. American Ethnologist. (with Rebecca Bryant)
2017 Alternatives to Austerity. Anthropology Today 33(5). (with Laura Bear)
2016 Ethnographies of Austerity: Temporality, Crisis and Affect in Southern Europe. History and Anthropology 27(1). (with Charles Stewart)
Biography
Dr Daniel M. Knight is Reader in the Department of Social Anthropology and Director of the Centre for Cosmopolitan Studies at the University of St Andrews. He has held positions at the London School of Economics and Political Science and Durham University and collaborates closely with the British School at Athens.
Daniel is a philosophical, historical, and economic anthropologist who has written extensively on time/temporality and crisis, primarily in the context of Thessaly, Greece. His work combines theories toward a ‘philosophy of humanity’ with detailed ethnographic, archival, and popular culture analysis.
Daniel is a PI on a Humanities in the European Research Area - Collaboration of Humanities and Social Science in Europe (HERA-CHANSE) project on Times in Crisis, Times of Crisis: The Temporalities of Europe in Polycrisis (TiCToC) (1.5m euros, 2025-28). The project explores what it means to live in times of crisis, how crisis changes over time, and the merits of the popularized polycrisis trope. TiCToC includes partner institutions in Austria, Czechia, Denmark, Norway and Slovenia, as well as engaging with 6 non-academic partners in the realm of film, theatre, museum and archival work. Ten projects were awarded by HERA-CHANSE, with a success rate a little above 4%.
Daniel is PI on a Leverhulme Trust project Times of Polycrisis (£416,630, 2025-29) investigating the cost of living and energy crises in the UK, Greece, and Turkey. The project interrogates the notion of 'unprecedented times' through lenses of political rhetoric, social complexity, communication technology, and historical consciousness.
He is author/editor of six books. “History, Time, and Economic Crisis in Central Greece” (Palgrave, 2015) provides a theory of ‘cultural proximity’, exploring how moments of the past are intricately woven together and embodied during eras of social upheaval. “The Anthropology of the Future” (Cambridge University Press, 2019), presents the concept of ‘orientations’ as a way to study the indefinite teleologies of everyday life. The book was translated into Turkish “Gelecegin Antropolojisi” in 2024 (Ankara: FOL). "Vertiginous Life: An Anthropology of Time and the Unforeseen" (Berghahn, 2021) proposes a theory of temporal vertigo, or how people experience the existential affects of life in crisis. “Energy Talk: Green Knowledge from Greece's Silicon Plains” (Cornell University Press, 2025) puts forward the concept of ‘adelo-knowledge’, unpacking how new conglomerations of knowledge emerge around the renewable energy industry.
Stemming from a long-term interest in the philosopher of science, Michel Serres, Daniel is co-editor of "Porous Becomings: Anthropological Engagements with Michel Serres" (Duke University Press, 2024). He has also co-edited “Ethnographies of Austerity: Temporality, Crisis and Affect in Southern Europe” (Routledge, 2017) and has edited special collections on “Alternatives to Austerity”, “Orientations to the Future”, "Emptiness", "The Vertiginous: Temporalities and Affects of Social Vertigo" and "Polycrisis". He is co-editor of “History and Anthropology” journal, convenes the ASA's "Anthropology of Time Network" and is an Associate of the Higher Education Academy. His research has been funded by HERA-CHANSE, the ESRC, EPSRC, Leverhulme Trust, British Academy and National Bank of Greece.
Daniel has delivered keynote addresses to national bodies and associations, including the Israeli Anthropological Association, the Italian Society for Cultural Anthropology, the Danish Association of Anthropologists (MegaSeminar), to the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, at the 4EU+ Prague Spring School, and keynote interdisciplinary humanities lectures in Luxembourg and Manchester. In 2024 he took up a visiting fellow position at Johns Hopkins University in Comparative Thought and Literature, hosted by Profs Jane Bennett and William Connolly.
Research Interests / Supervision Topics:
Philosophical Anthropology, History and Anthropology, Economic Anthropology, Anthropology of the Future, Anthropology of Crisis, Time and Temporality, Renewable Energy and Sustainable Economic Development, Modern Greece, European (especially Balkan and Mediterranean) Anthropology, Michel Serres
PhD supervision
- Connor Eckersall
- Andreas Vavvos
- Evgeniya Pakhomova
- Daniel Davies
- Hector Trujillo
- Cameron Dickie
Selected publications
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Porous becomings: anthropological engagements with Michel Serres
Knight, D. M. & Bandak, A., 1 Mar 2024, Durham, NC: Duke University Press. 325 p.Research output: Book/Report › Book
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Vertiginous life: an anthropology of time and the unforeseen
Knight, D. M., 1 Sept 2021, New York, NY: Berghahn. 163 p. (New anthropologies of Europe: perspectives and provocations; vol. 2)Research output: Book/Report › Book
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The anthropology of the future
Bryant, R. & Knight, D. M., 28 Mar 2019, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 226 p. (New departures in anthropology)Research output: Book/Report › Book
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Ethnographies of austerity: temporality, crisis and affect in Southern Europe
Knight, D. M. (Editor) & Stewart, C. (Editor), 23 Nov 2016, London: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group. 144 p.Research output: Book/Report › Book
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History, time, and economic crisis in Central Greece
Knight, D. M., 20 May 2015, New York: Palgrave Macmillan. 227 p.Research output: Book/Report › Book
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Orientations to the future
Byrant, R. (ed.) & Knight, D. M. (ed.), 8 Mar 2019, American Ethnologist: Conversations.Research output: Contribution to specialist publication › Special issue
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Special Issue: Polycrisis
Knight, D. M. & Henig, D., 1 Apr 2023, Anthropology Today.Research output: Other contribution
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Alternatives to Austerity
Bear, L. (Editor) & Knight, D. M. (Editor), 3 Oct 2017, In: Anthropology Today. 33, 5Research output: Contribution to journal › Special issue › peer-review
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Open access
Energy talk, temporality, and belonging in austerity Greece
Knight, D. M., 13 Apr 2017, In: Anthropological Quarterly. 90, 1, p. 167-191Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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Open access
Sun, wind, and the rebirth of extractive economies: renewable energy investment and metanarratives of crisis in Greece
Argenti, N. & Knight, D. M., Dec 2015, In: Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute. 21, 4, p. 781-802 22 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review