Time (e-book) (used book) | bookbook.eu

Description

Periodization is one of the essential tools of any historical study. The division of time into periods is a long-standing tradition in the humanities and social sciences, and central to the relationship between past, present, and future within a given society. Since antiquity, the formative role of periodization in shaping historical narrative has not only been determined by impartial considerations - it has also been shaped by non-neutral, national, religious, ethnic, and other inclinations. Indeed, periodization sits uneasily with the global reach of world history. How can a single temporal category account for the diversity of events taking place in different spaces of the world, each with their own distinct - and multiple - chronologies?

This series establishes the first book series on various aspects of time and periodization in history. In addition to probing or exploring the tradition of "ancient", "medieval" and "modern" chronologies within historical scholarship, the series seeks to engage with periodization in a range of other fields, including the arts, archaeology, economics, law, languages, ecology and other relevant disciplines.

As a constitutive act, periodization necessitates dividing time into discrete segments (epochs, eras, centuries, decades, events, and so forth). Periods thus work on multiple temporal levels: On the level of the quotidian, they denote meaning and correlation even though temporally proximate or simultaneous events may be unrelated or contingent. Paradoxically, however, periods also enact durations. They attribute meaning not only to what happens within a particular time frame, but also to the times that they rub against - beginnings and endings, ruptures and continuities. Some of these transitional times later become periods in their own right (Renaissance, Sattelzeit, fin de siècle, Anthropocene, etc.). Applied in hindsight, periods thus create and perpetuate chronological structures within the contingent flow of time.

Theoretical shifts over the course of the twentieth century introduced new categories, theoretical frameworks, methods and questions to scholarship, challenging previously established patterns of periodization. Categories like class, gender, and race have significantly influenced the interpretation of past events and the traditional Euro-political divisions of historical eras. The so-called "scientification" of research in the humanities and social sciences has ushered in new techniques and new concerns about periodization; similarly, the recent temporal and material turns have prompted new questions about multiple times at work in a given moment. It is becoming clearer that periods are not only heuristic devices but concepts laden with institutional and pedagogical traditions that condition disciplinary divisions. The birth of the Anthropocene in particular has prompted a reflection on the value of temporal as well as disciplinary divisions: Should we view time as a very long continuum or as a broken tale that is divided into different chapters? And how can we better grapple with, or address, overlapping periods, questions of beginnings and endings, origins and outcomes, continuities and connectivities within history and time?

We invite contributors working within a range of sources, times, regions, and methodologies to consider these questions and others as we continue to think through and within the advantages and disadvantages of dividing time. Key topics or themes of interest include historical climatology and environmental history; the periodization of the Anthropocene in the social sciences; time in visual studies, archaeology, and anthropology; the time of everyday life; Big/Deep History; ontology and evolution; law and legal history; chronologies of comparative religions; time in Marxist, capitalist, and globalization theory; the role of temporality in political and financial decision-making; world history; linguistic development; postmodernism; digitization; the relationship between time and space; and utopian studies and visions of the future.

Founding Editors:

Allegra Fryxell, University of Cambridge

Anna Gutgarts, Hebrew University

Oded Y. Steinberg, Hebrew University

Advisory Board:

Duncan Bell, University of Cambridge

Frederic Nolan Clark, University of Southern California

Hans-Ulrich Gumbrecht, Stanford University

Lynn Hunt, University of California

Julian Wright, Northumbria University