Notion Of Kairos Research Articles

Reinterpreting the “times of crisis” based on the asymmetry between chronos and kairos

In this article, I argue that the concept of crisis entails a particular form of experiencing and thinking historical time that can only be properly grasped by considering the asymmetry between chronos and kairos. After exploring the main meanings of these two Greek terms for “time”, I show that the chronos paradigm holds hegemony in contemporary theorizations on historical time. Reinhart Koselleck, who construed an influential conceptual history of “crisis”, reiterated such hegemony in his interpretation of the concept’s temporal sense by associating it with the phenomenon of temporal acceleration. This article argues that Koselleck’s interpretation is insufficient since “crisis” encompasses certain dimensions of temporal experience that can only be understood through the notion of kairos – namely, the temporality of decision, urgency, imminent rupture, and uncertainty about the future.

Historical time between Chronos and Kairos: on the historicity of The Kairos Document manifesto, South Africa, 1985

ABSTRACT Chronos and kairos are two Greek words that designate different temporal experiences not entirely opposed, but nonetheless irreducible to each other. This difference is highly relevant to theoretical debates on historical time, despite the hegemony of the chronological paradigm in modern historiography. This article upholds that claim by analyzing a South African manifesto titled The Kairos Document (KD), issued in 1985. My aim is to present a study on the historicity of the KD, arguing that the document is a paradigmatic case for, on the one hand, understanding the particular form of temporal experience encompassed by the notion of kairos, and on the other hand, applying the difference between chronos and kairos for historiographical analysis. I present a twofold approach to the KD. First, I situate the manifesto within its broader political, social and intellectual context, addressing as well the impacts it managed to inflict upon chronos-time. Secondly, I demonstrate how the KD grasps its own historical moment from a disruptive temporality that emerges on the threshold between a crisis and the urgency of taking timely action (kairos). I conclude this article by claiming that the kairological dimension of historical time becomes more evident in situations experienced as crisis.

Reconsidering the Pauline Conception of Time

ABSTRACT This article offers fresh insights regarding the interpretation of the Pauline representation of time. The research survey at the beginning of the article shows that no critical study that examines how Paul’s interpretation of the Jewish concepts of time reflects his experience of spiritual transformation through turning to faith in Christ has hitherto been conducted. Therefore, this article analyzes what kind of impact Paul’s “conversion” experience had on his time schemata once–now and already–not yet as well as on his notion of kairos and understanding of salvation history. Similarly, this study demonstrates the critical function of the representation of time for the interpretation of the present into the community as an ongoing and dynamic transformation of the self. Last, the discussion involves two perspectives that are mostly ignored in the relevant debates: first, the embodied or somatic dimensions of experiencing time and spiritual transformation in Early Christianity and, second, the coexistence of patterns both of continuity and discontinuity in the reconstructions of the worldview and biography of a convert.

Kairos and Carnival: Mikhail Bakhtin’s Rhetorical and Ethical Christian Vision

The term kairos has been used to mean, alternatively, right timing or proportion in Ancient Greek rhetoric, by Jesus to refer to the Christian eschaton and by Paul Tillich and modern liberation theologians to refer to the breakthrough of the divine into human history. Kairos, unlike chronos, is an intrinsically qualitative time and implies a consciousness of the present as well as the need for responsive action. This emphasis on action provides the link between kairos and virtue, the particular virtue in question being that of prudence (phronesis in Greek). The aim of this article is twofold: to highlight and make explicit the connections between the notion of kairos and the Russian literary-theorist and philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin’s rhetorical and ethical world, with particular emphasis on his notion of carnival; secondly, to further support a Christian reading of Bakthin’s work by making explicit the connections between his carnivalesque vision and a Christian reading of the ethical importance of kairos and its links with incarnation.

El èthos: entre el kairós y las formaciones discursivas

El artículo plantea que en el estudio del èthos o imagen de sí que el orador construye en su discurso se involucran dos nociones de diversa tradición. Una noción, que proviene de la retórica, es la de kairós; otra, usada en la perspectiva francesa de análisis del discurso, es la de formación discursiva. El trabajo analiza discursos de la expresidente argentina Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, en los que se identifica, por un lado, un èthos pedagógico y experto, vinculado con el kairós y el aquí y ahora de la enunciación, y, por otra parte, un èthos guerrero y anti institucionalista, ligado interdiscursivamente a una formación discursiva propia a una ideología populista.

Kairos and the time of gender equity policy in Australian schooling

ABSTRACTAlmost 20 years ago the Australian government released Gender Equity: A Framework for Australian Schools (1997). It was adopted by all states but almost immediately disappeared from sight after a conservative change of government. This was followed by the dismantling of gender equity units in each state, and a turn to boys’ education that eclipsed the more complex strategies and theoretical underpinnings of the Framework. This paper takes up the Gender Equity Framework (1997) as a case of policy emergence, mutation and dissipation. In particular, it attends to feminist temporality, and its affective force, to begin to trouble conventional accounts of these policy shifts. Close readings of sections of the policy document and of interviews with policy actors working at that time are analysed through the notion of kairos – timeliness, or political actions that open opportunities, breaks and ruptures – in order to provide new insights into the policy moment of gender equity in Australian schooling.

Phenomenological Problems for the Kairological Reading of Augenblick in Being and Time

In this paper we examine the key phenomena associated with the notion of kairos in Heidegger’s pre‐Being and Time writings and show that they all fall short of the methodological constraints and conceptual requirements placed on authentic presence in 1927. Though Heidegger’s early studies of Aristotle and the New‐Testament are broadly suggestive of the notion of temporality that is presented in his systematic treatise, none of those earlier texts carry the differentiations within which the Augenblick of Being and Time is situated. We thus claim that the ekstasis of authentic presence is neither reducible to an eschatological nor to a phronological kairos and furthermore, that the successor to kairos in Being and Time is more likely to be Jemeinigkeit than Augenblick. Establishing these distinctions gives us greater insights into the fundamental orientation of Heidegger’s inquiry in Being and Time.

Augenblick is not kairos

In this paper we examine the key phenomena associated with the notion of kairos in Heidegger‘s pre-Being and Time writings and show that they all fall short of the methodological constraints and conceptual requirements placed on authentic presence in 1927. Though Heidegger‘s early studies of Aristotle and the New-Testament are broadly suggestive of the notion of temporality that is presented in his systematic treatise, none of those earlier texts carry the differentiations within which the Augenblick of Being and Time is situated. We thus claim that the ekstasis of authentic presence is neither reducible to an eschatological nor to a phronological kairos.

Perpetually Beginning Until the End of the Fair: The paratextual poetics of serialised novels

Gerard Genette’s study of paratext, a primarily synchronic and taxonomic approach, is predicated upon the assumption that there is a neat border between what we can classify as text and the elements we can group together under the heading of paratext. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that the relationship between these two elements is more complicated than Genette suggests. Not only is the term paratext itself saddled with a potentially limitless number of elements, but the way that these elements interact with texts cannot be reduced to a uniform border that applies in all cases. Can we continue to talk about paratext once we have acknowledged its potentially limitless proliferation and the fuzzy border it shares with text; and if so, how does this affect the way we talk about text? This paper will suggest that to answer these questions we should refocus the concept of paratext from a synchronic to a diachronic approach. Such an approach, moving away from a pure taxonomy of spatially oriented categories, enables us to examine the way that literary works are represented over time. By focusing on Victorian serialised fiction, a form of the novel preoccupied with the temporal framework of its own production, it is possible to explore the complex relationship between text and paratext. At the same time, by examining this relationship in the context of different ideas of duration, such as the notions of kairos and chronos used by Frank Kermode, this paper will suggest a theoretical framework for relating an understanding of text and paratext to the figure of the author.

Response to "Accepting the Roles Created for Us: The Ethics of Reciprocity"

Katrina Powell and Pamela Takayoshi's article, Accepting Roles Created for Us: The Ethics of Reciprocity (CCC 54 [3]) was an important check to the discussions of methodology in rhetoric and composition, especially as these concern issues of reciprocity. Linking this rather abstract concept with the notion of kairos was smart on many levels, though it also raised questions for me that I hope they might address. Let me say upfront, that this was a useful and interesting essay, one that I read closely and have thought a good deal about. My questions are tough but only because they stem from a position of keen engagement. Their piece described well the complexities of negotiating the terms of give-and-take with research participants. Often the kinds of capital that professors and university representatives possess can be seen by participants as important in ways that researchers may not know until a teachable moment arises in the research setting when a participant spots a need that the researcher might address. In Powell's case, the need was for someone to listen to the story of a roommate's suicide, though listening to this put Powell in an uncomfort-

Genre as Temporally Situated Social Action

Rhetorical studies of genre have investigated the complex relationships between a range of genre activities and their social, historical, and institutional contexts. However, the temporal dimensions of these contexts require further specification and explicit examination. This article offers a first step toward conceptualizing the temporal dimensions of rhetorical contexts and considering the interplay between those dimensions and genre activity. First, the author reviews how temporality has figured in rhetorical studies of genre through the notions of kairos and temporal exigence. She then presents two models of time, “clock time” and “process time,” as a means for representing the temporal dimensions of rhetorical contexts and genre activity. Finally, the author examines the interplay between these temporal models and genre by analyzing a nurse practitioner's communicative interaction with two patients. By conceptualizing and examining the relationship between time and genre, this article adds to our understanding of genre as situated social action.

The rhetoric of unconditional surrender: Locating the necessary moment for coercion

This essay reworks the classical notions of kairos and to prepon to suggest that coercion can only be defended when the degree of human urgency exceeds the opportunity for further meaningful discourse. Unconditional demands are cast as thinly veiled elements underwriting a rhetoric advocating coercion. To illustrate the theoretical claims, the proposed criteria are used to critique U. S. involvement in the 1991 Gulf War, one of the most dramatic examples of American military power widely accepted by the American public as an instance of justified coercion.