Jenny Odell
New York Times-bestselling author of How to Do Nothing and Saving Time
Photo credit: Minhee Bae
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About Jenny Odell
Jenny Odell is a writer and artist whose work centers around the power of observation and attention in shaping our reality. Her first book, How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy, is âa complex, smart and ambitious book that at first reads like a self-help manual, then blossoms into a wide-ranging political manifestoâ (New York Times Book Review). A New York Times bestseller that Barack Obama named as one of his favorite books of the year, How to Do Nothing resists categorization, touching on everything from ancient Greek philosophy to birding to labor strikes to performance art. In it, Odell argues that our attention is our most valuable (and scarce) resource, and we must actively and continuously choose how we use itâinstead of letting the forces of capitalism choose for us. Instead, we can use our attention to reimagine and reconnect with our environments and our communities.
Jenny Odellâs highly-anticipated, Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock, answers the question, âWhat if you donât have time to spend in quiet contemplation?â Odell takes a deep dive into the fundamental structure of our societyâtimeâand finds that the clock we live by was built for profit, not for humans. When life has become a series of moments to be bought, sold, and converted into productivity, Odell argues, our painful relationship to time becomes interwoven with social inequities, climate crisis, and existential dread. In Saving Time, Jenny Odell offers different ways to experience time, pulling from pre-industrial cultures, nature, and geological time scales, that provide a respite, a source of meaning, and a more humane way of living.
In her expansive, tailored talks to students, creatives, and communities, Odell shares powerful presentations that combine sociology, ecology, geology, economics, and cultural history to create a truly unique argument for reclaiming our relationships with attention and time. She also draws on her art background to ask questions about how art changes our relationships with the world around us. A fascinating and charming speaker, Odell leaves audiences renewed, invigorated, and with fresh perspectives.
Jenny Odell is also a talented visual artist who has been exhibited at The Contemporary Jewish Museum, the New York Public Library, the Marjorie Barrick Museum, Les Rencontres D’Arles, Fotomuseum Antwerpen, Fotomuseum Winterthur, La GaĂŽtĂŠ Lyrique, the Lishui Photography Festival, and apexart. She has also been an artist in residence at Recology San Francisco (a.k.a. âthe dumpâ), the San Francisco Planning Department, the Internet Archive, and the Montalvo Arts Center. From 2013 to 2021, she taught digital art at Stanford University.
In addition to her bestselling books, Odellâs writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The New York Times, Sierra, and other publications. She lives in Oakland, California.
Contact us for more information about booking Jenny Odell for your next event.Â
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Speaking Topics
Saving Time
Jenny Odellâs book, Saving Time, combines research spanning sociology, ecology, geology, economics, and cultural history in order to explain the dominant ways in which we perceive time. But this research is also inflected through deeply personal experience, questioning, and a desire to find hope. In this talk, Odell tells the story of how these strands came together, and what they taught her about time.
How to Do Nothing
Tasked with presenting at an art conference following the 2016 election, Jenny Odell wrote a lecture that would eventually develop into the book How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy. It was a plea on behalf of things like nuance, earthliness, care, and maintenance, all things lost in the scroll and sidelined by a narrow vision of what productivity means. This talk is an updated version that includes lessons and insights from the pandemic.
Art and Perception
How does art change the way we encounter the world, and what counts as a technology of seeing? In this talk, Jenny Odell draws on her years as an artist and arts educator to approach these questions with a wide range of examples, with a special emphasis on digital and machine-mediated works.
Categories: College + University Speakers, Asian American and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander Month Speakers, Commencement + Convocation Speakers, Culture + Arts Speakers, Current + Social Issues Speakers, Environment + Sustainability Speakers, First-Year Experience Speakers, Future of Work Speakers, Innovation + Creativity Speakers, Library + Community Reads Speakers, Motivational + Inspirational Speakers, New Speakers, Productivity and Time Management Speakers, Science Speakers, Wellness Speakers -
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Praise for Jenny Odell
Praise for Saving Time
This important book is a revealing exploration of the forces that keep us locked in a shallow, commodified, and adversarial relationship with time. But it is also a portal to a far richer alternative. To read it is to slip through the bars of our modern temporal prison and experience how freedom might feel.
â Oliver Burkeman, author of Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for MortalsOdellâs journey to find the best way to use our limited time on earth is an eye-opening look at what it really means to be alive.
â TIMEThe visionary author of How to Do Nothing returns to challenge the notion that âtime is money.â In this hopeful and subversive cultural history, Odell traces the origins of our market-based understanding of time, arguing that how we organize our days has always been âa history of extraction, whether of resources from the earth or of labor time from people.â Odellâs research is rigorous, but Saving Timeâs real triumph lies in her road map for experiencing time outside the capitalist clock. Instead of âhoardingâ time, we should âgardenâ it, attuning ourselves to the natural world and prioritizing meaningful human connections. Expect to feel changed by this radical way of seeing.
â EsquireAt this pivotal historical moment, when so many of us are struggling with burnout, anxiety about the future, and a gnawing dissatisfaction that things donât have to be like this, in strides Jenny Odell with the exact book that we needed. Odell masterfully dissects the origins of our many destructive beliefs around work, leisure, and self-improvement, while also offering a way for us to be free of them. Saving Time is an exposeĚ of our past, an antidote to our present, and a manifesto for the future. It is rigorous, compassionate, profound, and hopeful. It is one of the most important books Iâve read in my life.
â Ed Yong, author of An Immense WorldPraise for How to Do Nothing
A complex, smart and ambitious book that at first reads like a self-help manual, then blossoms into a wide-ranging political manifesto.
â The New York Times Book ReviewYour chaotic, fraught internal weather isnât an accident, itâs a business-model, and while âthoughtful resistanceâ isnât âproductive,â Odell proves that it is utterly necessary.
â Cory Doctorow, author of Radicalized and WalkawayShe struck a hopeful nerve of possibility that I hadnât felt in a long time.
â The New Yorker -
Books by Jenny Odell
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- Jenny Odell travels from Oakland, CA
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Saving Time
âThis fiercely generous new book by Jenny Odell invites us to exit the superhighways and explore the scenic detours, byways, rebel camps, the other visions of who we can be while reminding us that slowness can yield more than speed.ââRebecca Solnit, author of Men Explain Things to Me and A Field Guide to Getting Lost