The term 'hyperobjects' originated from Björk's 1996 song 'Hyperballad', serving as a framework for Timothy Morton to describe entities distributed across time and space that transcend localization. A philosopher and literary scholar born in London in 1968, Morton integrates object-oriented ontology with ecological studies to challenge human perceptions of nature and non-human animals.
Education and Academic Career
Timothy Bloxam Morton earned both a B.A. and a D.Phil. in English from Magdalen College, Oxford. Their doctoral research, titled Re-Imagining the Body: Shelley and the Languages of Diet, focused on how food consumption and temperance appeared within the works of Percy Bysshe Shelley. Before securing a professorship at Rice University in 2012, Morton held teaching positions at the University of Colorado Boulder, New York University, and the University of California, Davis. Currently, Morton is also a faculty member in the Synthetic Landscapes postgraduate program at the Southern California Institute of Architecture.
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Morton has extensively analyzed Romantic literature, specifically the writings of Percy Bysshe Shelley and Mary Shelley. In the 1995 publication Shelley and the Revolution in Taste, Morton investigated the ideological connections between food, the body, and environmental conditions. They argued that vegetarianism and dietary choices in Romantic texts were not mere metaphors but deliberate commands concerning social reform and industrial logic. Beyond individual authors, Morton edited The Cambridge Companion to Shelley in 2006 and produced critical guides for Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.
Cultural Studies and Consumerism
Between 2000 and 2004, Morton published three significant works regarding the intersection of food and culture. The Poetics of Spice analyzed how the romanticized trade of spices influenced European consumerist history, viewing spice as a metaphor for desire and capital. Morton continued this investigation by editing Radical Food and Cultures of Taste/Theories of Appetite, which interrogated how societal structures were organized around competing logics of consumption, intoxication, and territorial boundaries.
Ecological Philosophy
Since 2009, Morton has focused on ecological critique. In books such as Ecology Without Nature and The Ecological Thought, they advocate for a removal of the traditional divide between human civilization and the natural world. Morton's concept of hyperobjects, which includes phenomena such as climate change and styrofoam, suggests that humans must radically rethink their relationship with non-human entities. Their work, including Humankind: Solidarity with Non-Human People, examines the political implications of these ontological shifts.
Fast facts
- Born: 1968, London
- Citizenship: United States
- Educated at: Magdalen College, Oxford
- Primary Affiliation: Rice University
- Key Concept: Hyperobjects
- Fields of study: Philosophy, ecology, Romantic literature
Questions readers ask
What does Morton mean by hyperobjects?
The term describes things that are so massively distributed in space and time that they cannot be fully localized, such as climate change.
Where does Morton currently teach?
Morton is a professor and holds the Rita Shea Guffey Chair in English at Rice University.
Achievements
- Held posts at Rice University, New York University and University of California, Davis
- Fields: philosophy, environmentalism and ecology
