Description
Book SynopsisTrade Review“As the editors argue, the temporal landscape of history is always replete with conflict and conflict potential. And, as the essays amply demonstrate, this provides rich pickings for the attentive historian. ‘Chronocenosis’ not only attunes us to the complex temporal frequencies of power conflicts but also enables us to locate new conflicts that may otherwise lie hidden from the historian's eye. . . . There are seemingly few domains of historical research that could not benefit from this approach. The dazzling diversity of these essays is testament to this. . . . A genuinely productive foundation on which to expand the historical study of time in a very practical–and global–sense. . . . The book’s subject matter is expansive, its temporal registers vast. [It] is difficult to imagine a historian who could not benefit in some way from consulting it.”
* Contemporary European History *
“What a gift this magnificent edited volume will be for those of us who have long sought to identify the implicit and violent ways in which power is garnered in battles over timing and time. With conceptual and empirical acuity, this is a volume that ‘harasses’ disciplinary strictures as it explodes the most revered canons. Moving from ‘multiple temporalities’ to conflictual ones is at the heart of this collective agenda, each author showing why such a conceptual and methodological move disrupts the seamlessness of linear histories and are critical moves we need to make. Here is a volume of depth, creativity, and inspiration for those long obsessed with thinking time and temporalities and for those who have not broached how profoundly such thinking recalibrates our collective futures—both their dark diagnostics and enabling horizons.” * Ann Stoler, The New School *
“This exciting and wide-ranging collection explores a crucial nexus of modern life: how social-political visions and conceptions of time shape each other. Its dazzling collection of case studies brings to life political leaders, scientists, economists, activists, and jurists as the authors chart how the interaction between temporality and authority transformed life across the globe. With original research and fresh methodological insights,
Power and Time is a vital contribution to our understanding of contemporary history.” * Udi Greenberg, Dartmouth College *
“In
Power and Time, Edelstein, Geroulanos, and Wheatley have curated a constellation of essays that take up the fascinating and vexed relation between the history of time and the times of history. The essays provide incredible range but maintain a tight thematic focus through the analytical pairing of power and time. In doing so, they offer an original and comprehensive survey of temporal regimes and the reciprocal feedback loop between the nodes of power that create them and the means by which that power is maintained.
Power and Time is impressive in scope and depth and an important contribution to the new metaphysics of time.” * Ethan Kleinberg, Wesleyan University *
Table of ContentsChronocenosis: An Introduction to Power and TimeDan Edelstein, Stefanos Geroulanos, and Natasha Wheatley PART I
Temporal Pluralities in Conflict1 Legal Pluralism as Temporal Pluralism: Historical Rights, Legal Vitalism, and Non-Synchronous SovereigntyNatasha Wheatley2 The Invention of the Muslim Golden Age: Universal History, the Arabs, Science, and IslamMarwa Elshakry3 Rise and Fall of the Sattelzeit: The Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe and the Temporality of Totalitarianism and GenocideAnson Rabinbach4 A Technofossil of the Anthropocene: Sliding Up and Down Temporal Scales with PlasticAndrea Westermann PART II
Loops, Layers, Assemblages5 Long Divided Must Unite, Long United Must Divide: Dynasty, Histories, and the Orders of Time in ChinaZvi Ben-Dor Benite6 The Temporal Assemblage of the Nazi New Man: The “Empty” Present, the Incipient Ruin, and the Apocalyptic Time of LebensraumStefanos Geroulanos7 Prehistory and Posthistory: Apes, Caves, Bombs, and Time in Georges BatailleMaria Stavrinaki PART III
The Splintered Present8 Brain-Time Experiments: Acute Acceleration, Intensified Synchronization, and the Belatedness of the Modern SubjectHenning Schmidgen9 Cryopower and the Temporality of Frozen Indigenous Blood SamplesEmma Kowal and Joanna Radin10 “Now Is the Time for Helter Skelter”: Terror, Temporality, and the Manson FamilyClaudia Verhoeven PART IV
Speed(s)11 Legal Panics, Fast and Slow: Slavery and the Constitution of EmpireLauren Benton and Lisa Ford12 Time and the Economics of the Business Cycle in Modern CapitalismJamie Martin13 History and Temporal Sovereignty in the Thought of Jawaharlal NehruSunil Purushotham PART V
“Already Here . . . Just Not Evenly Distributed”: Heterochronies of the Future14 Future Perfect: Political and Emotional Economies of Revolutionary TimeDan Edelstein15 The Future in the US Supreme CourtKristen Loveland16 Commemorating the End of History: Timelessness and Power in Contemporary RussiaKevin M. F. PlattAcknowledgments
Contributors
Index of Temporal Terms
