The Nick of Time: Politics, Evolution, and the Untimely

325 Pages·2004·1.18 MB·English

by  Elizabeth Grosz

‘This wide ranging study has important implications for the feminist
philosophy of the body,the ‘corporeal feminism’,that Elizabeth Grosz and
others initiated in the 1980s. Always one to take on big questions, Grosz
wants to shift the attention offeminist and other radical social theory to the
natural sciences,in order to ask how the biological induces the cultural and,
further,how our immersion in time affects the materiality of living beings.
Her characteristically lucid and passionate style engages imagination and
intellect equally,and invites a wide readership.’
—Susan Sheridan,Professor ofWomen’s Studies,Flinders University
‘Elizabeth Grosz traces a timely path through the work of three major
thinkers. Darwin, Nietzsche and Bergson, each in his own way, force a
rethinking of duration and transformation at the interchange between
nature and culture.The Nick ofTimesuggestively connects their trajectories,
drawing them together into a contemporary dialogue on the politics and
philosophy ofchange.’
—Brian Massumi,University ofMontreal and author of
Parables for the Virtual
‘Elizabeth Grosz’s The Nick of Time is a major work. It achieves a richly
nuanced and sweeping reconsideration of temporality in the context of
contemporary feminist theory, critical theory, and theories of evolution.
The considerations of Darwin, Nietzsche, Bergson, anyone interested in
understanding how memory, historicity, and politics connect to and are
reconfigured by temporality.’
—N.Katherine Hayles is Professor ofEnglish at the University of
California—Los Angeles,and author ofHow We Became Posthuman
‘Superbly written,deftly executed,and wonderfully instructive,The Nick of
Time is a first-class piece of writing and thinking.It is unique in that it is
interested in ‘philosophy of life’issues not only for their own sake but also
because of Elizabeth Grosz’s wider theoretical and practical commitments,
such as feminism and a radical cultural politics.’
—Keith Ansell Pearson is Professor ofPhilosophy at the
University ofWarwick and author ofGerminal Life

K
THE COF TIME
I
N
Politics, Evolution, and the Untimely
ELIZABETH GROSZ
First published in Australia and New Zealand in 2004
Copyright © Elizabeth Grosz 2004
All rights reserved.No part ofthis book may be reproduced or transmitted
in any form or by any means,electronic or mechanical,including photocopying,
recording or by any information storage and retrieval system,without prior
permission in writing from the publisher.TheAustralian Copyright Act 1968
(the Act) allows a maximum ofone chapter or 10 per cent ofthis book,
whichever is the greater,to be photocopied by any educational institution for
its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body
that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency
Limited (CAL) under the Act.
Allen & Unwin
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Australia
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National Library ofAustralia
Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:
Grosz,E.A.(Elizabeth Anne) 1952- .
The nick oftime :politics,evolution and the untimely.
Bibliography.
Includes index.
ISBN 1 74114 327 6.
1.Time - Philosophy. 2.Evolution - Philosophy. I.Title.
115
Set in Minion by Keystone Typesetting
Printed by Southwood Press Pty Ltd,Sydney
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments vii
Abbreviations ix
Introduction: To the Untimely 1
PART I. DARWIN AND EVOLUTION
1. Darwinian Matters: Life, Force, and Change 17
2. Biological Di√erence 40
3. The Evolution of Sex and Race 64
PART II. NIETZSCHE AND OVERCOMING
4. Nietzsche’s Darwin 95
5. History and the Untimely 113
6. The Eternal Return and the Overman 135
PART III. BERGSON AND BECOMING
7. Bergsonian Di√erence 155
8. The Philosophy of Life 185
9. Intuition and the Virtual 215
Conclusion: The Future 244
Notes 263
References 297
Index 309

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book would not have been possible without the help, support, and
input of many institutions and individuals. I owe a debt of gratitude to three
universities in particular. The earliest researches for this book were under-
taken at the Centre for Cultural Studies and Critical Theory at Monash
University in Melbourne, Australia. Without the support and encourage-
ment of faculty and students there, on whom I rehearsed the earliest and
most incoherent ideas developed here, I would have had no idea where to go
next, what to concentrate on, what to eliminate, what I knew enough about
already and what I knew I didn’t yet know, what was then beyond me, what I
had to acquire in order to make sense of what, for me, was a new and
unfamiliar topic.
The first two sections of the book were written while I worked in the
Departments of Comparative Literature and English at the State University
of New York at Bu√alo. I am particularly grateful to the graduate students in
those departments, who su√ered through a number of courses in which I
developed and refined much of the material that would find itself, I hope in
improved form, here. These improvements and refinements were the results
of the feedback and queries of these smart and critical students. My stay at
ub was particularly facilitated by the kind and generous support of Ms
Theresa Monacelli and through the intellectual stimulus provided by my
colleagues there, Professors Mimi Long, Jill Robbins, Isabel Marcus, Carol
Zemel, and Joan Copjec. My thanks to them for their generosity, kindness,
and support during the period of my tenure at ub.
The book’s final sections were completed while I worked in the Women’s
viii The Nick of Time
and Gender Studies Department at Rutgers University. I would like to thank
especially Ms Joanne Givand and Professors Joanna Regulska, Barbara Bail-
let, and Harriet Davidson, who, each in her own way, made my transition to
Rutgers as smooth and seamless as I had dared hope. I am grateful to the
department and to Rutgers University for providing me the stability and
confirmation, not to mention leave, I needed to complete the book.
While institutions provide the structure of material and economic sup-
port that enable books to be written, it is more personal, sometimes indirect
or oblique, relations with individuals that drive one to write a particular
book in a particular way. I am extremely grateful to a small circle of friends,
colleagues, and family who have supported me while I pursued the some-
times crazy and often inchoate paths that led me to produce this text, par-
ticularly Judith Allen, Sue Best, Pheng Cheah, Sally Munt, Tony Nunziata,
John Rajchman, Jacqueline Reid, Gai Stern, Jen St. Clair, Mary Gross, Tom
Gross, Irit Rosen, Tahli Fisher, Daniel Gross, and Mia Gross. Claire Cole-
brook deserves special mention for her incisive, detailed comments and
helpful suggestions. The book has definitely improved as a result of her
suggestions. My thanks, as always, to my mother, Eva Gross, for being there,
and for understanding that sometimes it is all right to not understand what
her daughter has been up to. I want to acknowledge the particular place of
Nicole Fermon in the production of this book. Without her support and
belief, there would be no point in writing, especially writing about the need
to a≈rm the new, the future, the unknown. She made the future seem an
exciting place to want to be, to see, and to help produce. This book is
dedicated to the memory of my father, Imre Gross, who made me under-
stand, more than anyone, how precious time is.
ABBREVIATIONS
Charles Darwin
dm The Descent of Man
os The Origin of Species
Friedrich Nietzsche
bge Beyond Good and Evil
eh Ecce Homo
gm On the Genealogy of Morals
gs The Gay Science
‘‘oul’’ ‘‘On the Utility and Liability of History for Life’’
ti Twilight of the Idols
wp The Will to Power
z Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Henri Bergson
ce Creative Evolution
cm Creative Mind
me Mind-Energy
mm Matter and Memory