Time: A Vocabulary of the Present

383 Pages·2016·5.929 MB·English

by  Amy Elias, Joel Burges (eds.)

Time
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Time
A Vocabulary of the Present
Edited by Joel Burges and Amy J. Elias
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York
www.nyupress.org
© 2016 by New York University
All rights reserved
References to Internet websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the
author nor New York University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or
changed since the manuscript was prepared.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Burges, Joel, editor. | Elias, Amy J., 1961- editor.
Title: Time : a vocabulary of the present / edited by Joel Burges and Amy J. Elias.
Description: New York : New York University Press, [2016] | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016010261 | ISBN 978-1-4798-2170-9 (cl : alk. paper) |
ISBN 978-1-4798-7484-2 (pb : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Time. | Horology. | Time—Psychological aspects. | Time—Philosophy.
Classification: LCC QB209 .T484 2016 | DDC 529—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016010261
New York University Press books are printed on acid- free paper, and their binding materials
are chosen for strength and durability. We strive to use environmentally responsible suppli-
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Also available as an ebook
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction: Time Studies Today. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1
Joel Burges and Amy J Elias
Part I. Time as History: Periodizing Time
1. Past / Future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Amy J Elias
2. Extinction / Adaptation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Ursula K Heise
3. Modern / Altermodern. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
David James
4. Obsolescence / Innovation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Joel Burges
5. Anticipation / Unexpected . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Mark Currie
Part II. Time as Calculation: Measuring Time
6. Clock / Lived. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
Jimena Canales
7. Synchronic / Anachronic. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
Elizabeth Freeman
8. Human / Planetary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
Heather Houser
9. Serial / Simultaneous . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
Jared Gardner
10. Emergency / Everyday . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
Ben Anderson
v
vi | Contents
11. Labor / Leisure. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
Aubrey Anable
12. Real / Quality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
Mark McGurl
Part III. Time as Culture: Mediating Time
13. Aesthetic / Prosthetic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
Jesse Matz
14. Analepsis / Prolepsis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240
James Phelan
15. Embodied / Disembodied . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255
Michelle Stephens and Sandra Stephens
16. Theological / Worldly. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281
Stanley Hauerwas
17. Authentic / Artificial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294
Anthony Reed
18. Batch / Interactive. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309
Nick Montfort
19. Transmission / Influence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323
Rachel Haidu
20. Silence / Beat. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337
Paul D Miller, aka DJ Spooky, That Subliminal Kid
Time Studies: A Bibliographical Reading List 345
About the Contributors 355
Index 361
Acknowledgments
As co- editors, we have different sources to thank, but together we thank
our contributors for their exciting contributions and patient involve-
ment in this project. We would also thank Eric Zinner, senior editor,
and Alicia Nadkarni, assistant editor, at New York University Press for
their faith in this project and the four anonymous readers who evaluated
it early on. We would also like to thank William Kentridge and Anne
McIlleron for their permission to reproduce a still from Kentridge’s The
Refusal of Time on the book cover. And finally, we both want to thank
the copy editors at NYU Press for their excellent work, and Andrew
Todd for his help with the bibliography.
Joel Burges: I have spent a lot of time thinking about temporality
over the years. The time spent, however, would have been impossible
without the support of numerous institutions and people. This collec-
tion began as an idea at a bar in Germany while I was a Mellon post-
doctoral fellow in the humanities at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, so both the Mellon Foundation and MIT, especially the
literature faculty there, deserve special thanks. My current home, the
Department of English at the University of Rochester (ably headed
by two wonderful chairs, John Michael and Rosemary Kegl), has been
an amazing place to be a junior faculty member. Without the intel-
lectual and financial support of my department and university, this
book could not have come into being. I also wish to thank my stu-
dents in the courses The Poetics of Television and Clocks and Com-
puters: Visualizing Cultural Time, all of whom have added to how I
understand temporality enormously. ASAP: The Association for the
Study of the Arts of the Present hosted two panels related to this
book, giving it stimulating audiences ahead of publication. And the
Susan and Donald Newhouse Center for the Humanities provided a
great place to complete the collection (thanks in particular to Carol
Dougherty and Jane Jackson). I can’t praise my co- editor, Amy Elias,
vii
viii | Acknowledgments
enough. Working with her taught me how to be a better member of
the profession, and how to do things I didn’t yet know how to do—
and in less time than I thought I could! Two singularly remarkable
individuals came into my life while I was working on this project:
Rachel Haidu and Nathan Johnson. Both have caringly clarified why I
care so much about time, especially alternative temporalities. And my
family— Nancy Burges, Shirley Fray, and Ann Burges, not to mention
Dirk Dixon and my dog, Anya— have shown enormous patience, care,
and enthusiasm as I made my way toward an intellectual life over the
years. My mother deserves to be singled out: her support often gives
me the time I need to live that life. I dedicate the work I have done
here to her, with love.
Amy J. Elias: I would like to thank and acknowledge the support of
the University of Tennessee’s Department of English and the Hodges
Better English Fund for research time and monetary support that led
to this collection’s completion, particularly a Hodges Research Grant
in summer 2012; the University of Tennessee Humanities Center,
headed at the time by Thomas J. Heffernan, for a research fellow-
ship in 2013 that granted time for collection editing and production;
Stanton Garner, head of the UT English Department during the time
of this project and a staunch supporter of the contemporary arts as
well as a friend; and the College of Arts and Sciences at the Univer-
sity of Tennessee for a 2012 SARIF travel grant enabling work toward
this project, and the college’s dean, Theresa Lee, for unflagging sup-
port of humanities initiatives. ASAP: The Association for the Study
of the Arts of the Present provided opportunities at its conferences
and symposia to explore and shape ideas expressed in these pages
and to gather together some of its splendid contributors, as well as
my co- editor (yes, the bar in Germany). I am grateful especially for
the generosity, collegiality, and brilliance of fellow scholars and arts
practitioners throughout the world, too many to name here, who have
discussed and debated the contemporary arts with me and helped to
generate exciting new conversations about them. I thank the members
of the UT Critical Theory Reading Group and the UT Committee on
Social Theory for collegial interchange and valuable intellectual con-
versations; the members of the Contemporary Arts and Society Re-
search Seminar at UT for providing rare and thoughtful community
Acknowledgments | ix
across arts fields; and my girls at UT (you know who you are), who
are a deeply appreciated source of female solidarity and friendship.
Jonathan Barnes is thanked always for everything without reserve or
limit. And Joel Burges is sent sincere thanks and gratitude for sharing
his intellectual gifts and friendship in this endeavor; it’s a pleasure to
work with such brilliant scholars who will shape the field in the years
to come.