Prof Daniel Knight
Professor
- Phone
- +44 (0)1334 46 2985
- dmk3@st-andrews.ac.uk
- Office
- Room 21, School 6
- Location
- United Colleges
- Office hours
- On research leave
Research areas
Books
2026 . Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
2025 . Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
2024 . Durham, NC: Duke University Press. (co-edited with Andreas Bandak).
2021 . New York, NY: Berghahn.
2019 . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (co-authored with Rebecca Bryant). Turkish Translation . Ankara: FOL, 2024.
2017 . London: Routledge. ([with new Afterword], co-edited with Charles Stewart).
2015 . 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
Prof Daniel M. Knight is Professor of Philosophical Anthropology in the Department of Social Anthropology and Director of the Centre for Cosmopolitan Studies at the University of 精东传媒. 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 鈥榩hilosophy of humanity鈥� 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 () 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 (拢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 seven books. 鈥�鈥� (Palgrave, 2015) provides a theory of 鈥榗ultural proximity鈥�, exploring how moments of the past are intricately woven together and embodied during eras of social upheaval. 鈥�鈥� (Cambridge University Press, 2019), presents the concept of 鈥榦rientations鈥� as a way to study the indefinite teleologies of everyday life. The book was translated into Turkish 鈥�鈥� in 2024 (Ankara: FOL). "" (Berghahn, 2021) proposes a theory of temporal vertigo, or how people experience the existential affects of life in crisis. 鈥�鈥� (Cornell University Press, 2025) puts forward the concept of 鈥榓delo-knowledge鈥�, unpacking how new conglomerations of knowledge emerge around the renewable energy industry. "" (Stanford University Press, 2026) provides a cross-humanities critique of the so-called unprecedented polycrisis that has become a popular framework in political and corporate worlds.
Stemming from a long-term interest in the philosopher of science, Michel Serres, Daniel is co-editor of "" (Duke University Press, 2024). He has also co-edited 鈥�鈥� (Routledge, 2017) and has edited special collections on "Polycrisis", 鈥淎lternatives to Austerity鈥�, 鈥淥rientations to the Future鈥�, "Emptiness", "The Vertiginous: Temporalities and Affects of Social Vertigo" and "Polycrisis". He is co-editor of 鈥�鈥� journal, convenes the 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 Professorial 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
- Faye Bamford
- Daniel Davies
- Cameron Dickie
- Amara Doshi
- Connor Jennings
- Andreas Lekkos
- Matteo Valenzasca
Selected publications
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Knight, D., 16 Feb 2026, (Accepted/In press) Stanford University Press. (Square One: First-Order Questions in the Humanities)
Research output: Book/Report 鈥� Book
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Knight, D. M., 15 May 2025, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. 180 p.
Research output: Book/Report 鈥� Book
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Knight, D. M. & Bandak, A., 1 Mar 2024, Durham, NC: Duke University Press. 325 p.
Research output: Book/Report 鈥� Book
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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 鈥� Book
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Bryant, R. & Knight, D. M., 28 Mar 2019, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 226 p. (New departures in anthropology)
Research output: Book/Report 鈥� Book
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Knight, D. M. (Editor) & Stewart, C. (Editor), 23 Nov 2016, London: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group. 144 p.
Research output: Book/Report 鈥� Book
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Knight, D. M., 20 May 2015, New York: Palgrave Macmillan. 227 p.
Research output: Book/Report 鈥� Book
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Open access
Knight, D. M. (Editor) & Henig, D. (Editor), 1 Apr 2023, In: Anthropology Today. 39, 2
Research output: Contribution to journal 鈥� Special issue 鈥� peer-review
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Bear, L. (Editor) & Knight, D. M. (Editor), 3 Oct 2017, In: Anthropology Today. 33, 5
Research output: Contribution to journal 鈥� Special issue 鈥� peer-review
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Knight, D. M., May 2015, In: American Ethnologist. 42, 2, p. 230-246 17 p.
Research output: Contribution to journal 鈥� Article 鈥� peer-review