Terrains of Time:
Modern Temporality(ies) in Social Sciences and Beyond
An International Workshop, Bar Ilan University, Israel June 14-15, 2020
Time has been studied, researched, and thought over for thousands of years and
across cultures. In recent decades, some accounts of the role of time and
temporality in human (and non-human) experiences proved fruitful for
contemporary thought and research. Those who dared to ask St. Augustine’s
renowned question—“what, then, is time?”— developed vital and
fascinating insights about human and non-human nature(s), cultures, societies,
environments, emotions, personalities, and politics. A nuance- sensitive
understanding of the social, cultural, and political dimensions of time is of
immense potential.
Nevertheless, time as a category is an understudied topic in the traditional
humanities and social sciences. Even though Time Studies is now
institutionalized in academia (societies, journals, etc.), the field has
hardly crystalized into an organized body of knowledge with its own defined
and structured vocabulary, working assumptions, controversies, and research
agendas, to be reflected in other disciplines. Today, the scholar of space,
body and other similar categories can draw from these fields’ respective
bodies of knowledge. But this is not always the case with Time Studies. Is it
a mere problem of institutionalization, or rather does it have to do with
Augustin’s wonder, i.e. with the elusiveness of the concept of time?
The international workshop “Terrains of Time” is aimed at developing an
integrative and interdisciplinary conversation about time as a social and
cultural phenomenon, while accounting for global and local contexts.
Topics:
¨ Time and temporality: definitions, analytical frameworks, narratives,
and symbolizations.
¨ Time and related categories: space, body, and subjectivity.
¨ Time and humanity; time in (or after) the Anthropocene.
¨ Time and the social: The role of time in assembling and disassembling
individuals and groups, personalities and collectives, actors and networks;
measurement, standardization, multi-temporalities, synchronization, and
desynchronization.
¨ Time and power: social and political struggles waged about time as a
resource, for example regarding status, gender, and labor; time in public
policy, social stratification (e.g. age stratification), evaluation and
criticism; Time regimes; Global, local, and networked temporalities.
¨ Time and the market: commodification, trading, and soliciting time; Time
poverty and affluence.
¨ Micro-interactions: waiting, rushing, getting prepared, aging, time
wasting, “quality time,” transitions, cheating on time.
¨ Rituals of time, times of rituals.
¨ Time and morality: temporal distributive justice.
¨ Time in ecological challenges and technological developments.
¨ Risk, readiness, and uncertainty (e.g. in future studies).
¨ Time and cultural relativity: Are there groups that experience
“more” or “less” time, or groups that have “more” or “less”
temporality? Do certain groups care about time more than others?
¨ Time and “the moderns”: was the modern period embedded in
“temporalization of the experienced life”, as maintained by Koselleck and
echoed in Latour’s conceptualization of the modern? Did a “temporal
turn” take place in history, and/or in theory? On the other hand, are
industrialized societies poorer in time (while being affluent in other
resources), as common wisdom so often holds?
The workshop will explore the social, cultural, political, economic, human,
and environmental dimensions of time and temporality(ies) from a variety of
disciplinary perspectives, including, but not limited to: philosophy,
literature, psychology, geography, history, linguistics, sociology,
anthropology, gender studies, cultural studies, and science and technology
studies.
The workshop will take place at Bar Ilan University on June 14-15, 2020. No
registration fee is required, but we cannot assist with travel expenses.
Confirmed guest speakers:
¨ Barbara Adam, Emerita Professor, Cardiff University and Affiliate
Scholar, IASS Potsdam
¨ Judy Wajcman, Anthony Giddens Professor of Sociology, London School of
Economics
¨ Frédéric Worms, Professor of Philosophy, École normale
supérieure
Abstracts of up to 300 words for a 20-minute paper, with a short bio, may be
sent to: terrainsoftime2019@gmail.com no
later than January 15, 2020. Notifications of acceptance will be sent by
February 15, 2020.
The international workshop is organized by the Research Group “It’s about
Time”, sponsored by Bar Ilan’s Rector, Prof. Miriam Faust; and under the
auspices of the Bar Ilan Center for Cultural Sociology. Organizing committee
(alphabetical order): Anat Leibler, Miri Rozmarin, Hizky Shoham, Dror Yinon
(Interdisciplinary Studies Unit, Bar Ilan University).
Anat Leibler, Ph.D
The Graduate Program in Science, Technology and Society
Bar Ilan University
https://www.sts-biu.org/anat-e-leibler
https://sts-biu.academia.edu/AnatLeibler
___
EASST's Eurograd mailing list
Eurograd (at) lists.easst.net
Unsubscribe or edit subscription options: http://lists.easst.net/listinfo.cgi/eurograd-easst.net
Meet us via https://twitter.com/STSeasst
Report abuses of this list to Eurograd-owner@lists.easst.net
