In this course, we will examine anthropology's integral (and often fraught) relationship with time. The course is divided into two major segments. In our first half, we explore the philosophical backstory as a particular--and, perhaps, foundational--category of human perception and experience. We will then trace how classic anthropology attempted to pick up these debates via core anthropological concerns with relativism, with cultural particularity, and with the social origins of perception.
With these canonical foundations in place, we will turn in our second segment to the myriad ways in which the concern with time infuses contemporary anthropology. Here we will move from questions of anthropological representation--especially the notorious critique of the "ethnographic present"--to recent anthropological attempts to discuss the cultural, social, and political work inherent in the production of different pasts, presents, and futures. As we will explore, though it may seem intimate and inherent, the production of time cannot be separated from ongoing histories of colonial domination, violence, resilience, innovation, and transformation. |