Plural Temporalities Research Articles

The Plural Temporalities of Hegemony

Louis Althusser’s critique of Gramsci’s “absolute historicism” involved the elaboration of a distinctive notion of plural historical temporalities or times. This argues, first, that Althusser’s theory of plural historical temporalities should be understood as integrally linked to his critique both of structuralism and of theories of the subject. Second, the essay argues that, Althusser’s early criticisms notwithstanding, Gramsci can be understood to have elaborated a consistently nonformalist notion of constitutive temporal plurality, particularly with his notion of “prevision” as a method of political work. Rather than culminating in a figure of temporal synchronization, hegemonic politics should instead be thought as a mode of intervention that valorizes rather than negates the “non-presence of the present,” or constitutive noncontemporaneity, as the fundamental condition of revolutionary politics.

Periodization and “The Medieval Globe”: A Conversation

The period categories “medieval” and “modern” emerged with—and have long served to define and legitimate—the projects of western European imperialism and colonialism. The idea of “the medieval globe” is therefore double edged. On the one hand, it runs the risk of reconfirming the terms of the colonial, Orientalist history through which the “medieval” emerged, thus homogenizing the plural temporalities of global cultures and effacing the material effects of the becoming of the Middle Ages and its relationship to conditions of globalization. On the other hand, “the medieval globe” brings to bear a comparative focus that does not ask when and why a given culture did or did not start making the shift toward modernity, but rather asks what was going on at a given period throughout the globe. Such a history might undo the foundational narratives of European nations as well as give space to hitherto slighted histories. This conversation approaches the complexities of this problem from two perspectives: that of a scholar in European studies and a scholar in Chinese studies.

Marx’s Gendered Temporalities

Massimiliano Tomba’s book, Marx’s Temporalities, stresses the centrality of the body for the critique of exploitation and suggests that a new phenotype is produced by consumerism and by the dynamic of capitalist accumulation, with its plural temporalities. However, both the body of the worker and the new phenotype do not appear to have a sex or a gender in Tomba’s book. In this intervention, I read some of Tomba’s insights about the body, the new phenotype, and primary accumulation in the light of a critical gender and feminist perspective.

Ciudades vividas, ciudades pintadas, ciudades proyectadas El futurismo italiano (1909-1915)

<p>Este ensayo analiza un período acotado (1909-1915) del movimiento futurista italiano, centrando su atención en cómo algunos de sus protagonistas −pintores, escultores, arquitectos− interpretan el espacio de sus intervenciones a través del registro consciente del tiempo peculiar que atañe a la obra concreta.<br />En el caso de los trabajos futuristas, se tratará de una temporalidad plural, considerada en su específico trans-correr como velocidad, movimiento mecánico; y traducida pues, en el universo creativo, como “simultaneismo de acciones” y “dinamismo plástico”. La atención se focalizará en las “ciudades” de los futuristas tal y como son vividas por parte de los componentes del grupo, retratadas por los pintores y proyectadas por los arquitecos.</p>

The Outmodedness of Shakespeare’s Sonnets

This essay proposes that Shakespeare’s sonnet sequence, parts of which were written after the vogue for amorous sonnet sequences had passed, makes programmatic use of its own outmodedness. Style in the period operated as a technique of class consolidation among the elite and, therefore, as a site of class struggle. But by abandoning the ambition either for timeliness or timelessness, the sonnets encounter a kind of benevolent neglect, where love can develop apart from the timely pressures of social climbing, fashion, and the imperative to procreate. The plural temporality of outmodedness--the way it situates a persistent form of the past within the present--also forces style to confront the arbitrariness of its own procedures.

A itinerância das ideias e o pensamento social africano.

A itinerância das ideias e o pensamento social africano.

Mythologies at 50: Barthes and Popular Culture

Despite his obvious talent for self-stylization Roland Barthes never wanted to be turned into a monument. And he was wary about the monumental success of his most popular work, Mythologies of 1957. Based on an anniversary symposium in 2007, this special issue of Nottingham French Studies convincingly sidesteps the trap of contributing further to the mythology of the mythologist Barthes warns against in the opening remarks of his work. Exposing the widespread ‘accessorization’ (p. 4) of Mythologies as intellectual fashion item, the present collection of essays aims to reflect critically on the ‘pertinence and impertinence’ (p. 1) of Barthes's book, both in relation to its own time and in terms of its resonance today. This is a far-reaching task and one wishes that the Introduction had defined a more specific set of questions for the authors to reflect on in their individual contributions. And, given the symposium context, the volume might also have benefited from the inclusion of some documentation of the open dialogue between the contributors in order to compensate for the heterogeneity, and at times highly specialized nature, of the topics. The contributions range from an analysis of Barthes's deployment of dialectics and his relationship to Marxism (Andy Stafford), to a very inspiring discussion of the relevance of Mythologies for contemporary ‘thing-theory’ (Edward Welch), and to an interesting — yet, within the context of the book, seemingly less relevant — debate on why Barthes's essays exclude the bande dessinée (Laurence Grove). In addition, we find a suggestive interrogation of Barthes's eclectic methodology through the theme of food (Douglas Smith), followed by Paul Hegarty's refreshingly uncompromising discussion of the plural temporalities of Mythologies and the often dubious commemorative strategies that have marked its reception. Finally, Martine Joly positions Barthes's study within 1950s French research on myth and reflects on recent and, she argues, futile attempts to repeat its success, while Graham Allen discusses Mythologies with regard to the development of Cultural Studies and contemporary university micromanagement. In the same way as the object of its inquiry, this collection of essays remains openly inconclusive. And yet, given the transnational nature and the worldwide impact of Barthes's approach to the analysis of everyday myths in France, one would have wanted to read more about its relation to international research in the field (most recently, Herfried Münkler on Die Deutschen und ihre Mythen (2009)). Nevertheless, for anyone interested in Roland Barthes, in popular culture, and in mythology, the essays here, many of the highest quality, make an insightful and thought-provoking read.

Jurisdiction and Scale: Legal `Technicalities' as Resources for Theory

Since the 1980s, critical studies of law and space have fruitfully explored the insight that law's mechanisms can be understood in part as mapping exercises. Existing work on law's scales (especially that using a post-colonial studies frame) has delved into the qualitative as well as the quantitative dimensions of scale, thus exposing some key epistemological issues in law. This article moves the discussion forward by demonstrating that theoretical work on `scale' — outside and inside legal studies — could benefit from studying specifically legal mechanisms such as `jurisdiction'. Recent work has shown that the various modes and rationalities of governance that coexist in every political-legal `interlegality' are not necessarily tethered to any particular scale; thus, exploring jurisdiction's effects takes us beyond scale. As an example, the knowledge moves that constitute what in the USA is called `the police power of the state' are briefly discussed. The fact that the gaze of police science/police regulation is not simply geographically local, but is rather specifically urban, shows the importance of understanding the complex governing manoeuvres enabled by the legal game of jurisdiction — especially if work on `scale' and jurisdiction is then supplemented by a consideration of the plural temporalities of governance, since temporality tends to become invisible both in analyses that privilege space and in the somewhat static diagrams of governance that make up the game of jurisdiction.

A major change in working time

This article describes how this special issue was conceived, the rationale behind it and the principal lessons to be drawn on the subject of working time in industrialized countries. It shows that we may be at a turning point in history; a process of fundamental transition is occurring between one epoch—the industrial era during which linear, uniform working time, based on a specific mode of production and set of professional relationships, was imposed as the central pivot around which the whole of society was organized—and another, characterized by a noticeable reduction in, but above all a significant diversification of the nature of working time, ie rapid change in its content and form. We are witnessing the shift from a single temporality—time imposed synchronistically—to a plural temporality—individually chosen working time and variable hours.