About

The Making of Deep Time is an ongoing series of research interviews featuring paleoartists, paleontologists, sociologists, historians, museum professionals, and scholars from all over the world. This website serves as a platform to encourage the interdisciplinary study of how extinct species and past environments are made visible and knowable. The ubiquity of images of dinosaurs and other prehistoric lifeforms calls for a systematic and integrated study of how epistemologies, aesthetic postures, cultural trends, technological innovations, and institutions contribute in making the deep time accessible to the human eye. 

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In these interviews, the guests address a great variety of themes and issues related to the reconstruction and restoration of extinct lifeforms through scientific, artistic and technical practices. In the last minutes of the interview, each of them is asked to comment on the meaning of the "deep time" metaphor coined by American writer John McPhee in the 1980s.

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In order to facilitate further research, this website's References page lists all the books, articles, and other sources mentioned during each interview. Additionally, a general bibliography on the subject of paleoart can be found on the Bibliography page. 

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The Making of Deep Time is a research project run by Victor Monnin, PhD, Adjunct Professor of Humanities at the Illinois Institute of Technology and Associate Researcher at the Archives Henri-Poincaré (Strasbourg). If you have any suggestion or would like to contribute, do not hesitate to send a message via the Contact page.