Joseph Epes Brown and Emily Cousins
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- January 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195138757
- eISBN:
- 9780199871759
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195138757.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, World Religions
This chapter focuses on Native American concepts of time and process. Western culture often perceives time as a linear progression that advances from past to present to future in a straight line. In ...
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This chapter focuses on Native American concepts of time and process. Western culture often perceives time as a linear progression that advances from past to present to future in a straight line. In contrast, many Native American cultures observe that the rhythm of the world is circular, as is the life of all beings and forms. In these cultures, time tends to be experienced as cyclical and rhythmic, rather than linear and progress oriented. Most Native American languages, for instance, do not have past and future tenses; they reflect instead a perennial reality of the present. These differing perceptions of time have contributed to the misunderstandings that characterize so many interactions between Native and non-Native Americans.Less
This chapter focuses on Native American concepts of time and process. Western culture often perceives time as a linear progression that advances from past to present to future in a straight line. In contrast, many Native American cultures observe that the rhythm of the world is circular, as is the life of all beings and forms. In these cultures, time tends to be experienced as cyclical and rhythmic, rather than linear and progress oriented. Most Native American languages, for instance, do not have past and future tenses; they reflect instead a perennial reality of the present. These differing perceptions of time have contributed to the misunderstandings that characterize so many interactions between Native and non-Native Americans.
Fiona J. Stafford
- Published in print:
- 1994
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198112228
- eISBN:
- 9780191670718
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198112228.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, 17th-century and Restoration Literature, Mythology and Folklore
This chapter examines Thomas Burnet's The Sacred Theory of the Earth, an influential account of the earth's history based on the text of the Bible, published in the seventeenth century. In The Sacred ...
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This chapter examines Thomas Burnet's The Sacred Theory of the Earth, an influential account of the earth's history based on the text of the Bible, published in the seventeenth century. In The Sacred Theory, Burnet, who considers himself among the first last men, articulates the myth of the last of the race in its most extreme form; yet, his text contains all the major factors that were to bring about the myth's development: the diminishing apocalyptic convictions, the tension between individual and communal attitudes, and the concept of linear time. The Sacred Theory is a manifestation of traditional beliefs and among the first futuristic fictions. Burnet's creation of the Sacred Theory was seen to be taking over God's role as ‘Author’ while also underscoring the scriptural history's fictional aspect.Less
This chapter examines Thomas Burnet's The Sacred Theory of the Earth, an influential account of the earth's history based on the text of the Bible, published in the seventeenth century. In The Sacred Theory, Burnet, who considers himself among the first last men, articulates the myth of the last of the race in its most extreme form; yet, his text contains all the major factors that were to bring about the myth's development: the diminishing apocalyptic convictions, the tension between individual and communal attitudes, and the concept of linear time. The Sacred Theory is a manifestation of traditional beliefs and among the first futuristic fictions. Burnet's creation of the Sacred Theory was seen to be taking over God's role as ‘Author’ while also underscoring the scriptural history's fictional aspect.
Jonathon D. Crystal
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780195377804
- eISBN:
- 9780199848461
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195377804.003.0015
- Subject:
- Psychology, Cognitive Psychology
A central problem in the study of comparative cognition is to identify an animal's psychological representation of information in its ...
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A central problem in the study of comparative cognition is to identify an animal's psychological representation of information in its environment. A psychophysical approach to studying the representation of time seeks to identify the relation between psychological (that is, subjective) and physical estimates of time. There is a long history of controversy over the psychophysical function for time. Some of the earliest investigations in experimental psychology focused on identifying aspects of the psychophysical relation described above. Later research suggested that psychological time is linearly related to physical time. The hypothesis that subjective estimates of time are linearly related to physical time is referred to as linear timing. There is a growing body of recent evidence which suggests that subjective estimates of time are nonlinearly related to physical time; this will be referred to as the nonlinear timing hypothesis. The observation that time perception across many ranges is nonlinear may provide a basis for the development of a unified theory of timing that encompasses the discrimination of temporal intervals across several orders of magnitude — from milliseconds to days.Less
A central problem in the study of comparative cognition is to identify an animal's psychological representation of information in its environment. A psychophysical approach to studying the representation of time seeks to identify the relation between psychological (that is, subjective) and physical estimates of time. There is a long history of controversy over the psychophysical function for time. Some of the earliest investigations in experimental psychology focused on identifying aspects of the psychophysical relation described above. Later research suggested that psychological time is linearly related to physical time. The hypothesis that subjective estimates of time are linearly related to physical time is referred to as linear timing. There is a growing body of recent evidence which suggests that subjective estimates of time are nonlinearly related to physical time; this will be referred to as the nonlinear timing hypothesis. The observation that time perception across many ranges is nonlinear may provide a basis for the development of a unified theory of timing that encompasses the discrimination of temporal intervals across several orders of magnitude — from milliseconds to days.
Romila Thapar
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- October 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780195637984
- eISBN:
- 9780199081912
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195637984.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Indian History
This book examines the link between time and history in the Indian context. It debunks the concept of time as cyclic in early India and subsequently the denial of history. The book indicates the ...
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This book examines the link between time and history in the Indian context. It debunks the concept of time as cyclic in early India and subsequently the denial of history. The book indicates the existence of linear time in Indian texts such as genealogies, biographies, and chronicles, where time-reckoning was recorded through generations, regnal years and eras. The volume suggests that cyclic time was used in cosmological contexts while linear time was used in historical contexts. It further argues that historical consciousness existed in early India.Less
This book examines the link between time and history in the Indian context. It debunks the concept of time as cyclic in early India and subsequently the denial of history. The book indicates the existence of linear time in Indian texts such as genealogies, biographies, and chronicles, where time-reckoning was recorded through generations, regnal years and eras. The volume suggests that cyclic time was used in cosmological contexts while linear time was used in historical contexts. It further argues that historical consciousness existed in early India.
Elliot R. Wolfson
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520246195
- eISBN:
- 9780520932319
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520246195.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This chapter explores the nexus of time, truth, and death as it emerges hermeneutically from the symbolic world of medieval kabbalah. It focuses on the letters alef, mem, and tau, the consonants of ...
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This chapter explores the nexus of time, truth, and death as it emerges hermeneutically from the symbolic world of medieval kabbalah. It focuses on the letters alef, mem, and tau, the consonants of the word emet, “truth,” which stand respectively for beginning, middle, and end, the three points of the curvature of the timeline. The correlation of truth and divinity underscores that truth, which embodies in its semiotic constellation the triadic structure of temporality, is the mark of the divine eternally becoming in time. The letters of emet are examined to discern something of the truth of time manifestly concealed in the time of truth, the beginning that cannot begin if it is to be the beginning, the middle that remarks the place of origin and destiny, and the end that is the figuration of the impossible disclosing the impossibility of figuration. Linear time is eternalized in the circular rhythms of the sacred time of liturgy and ritual, a process exemplified especially in the celebration of Sabbath.Less
This chapter explores the nexus of time, truth, and death as it emerges hermeneutically from the symbolic world of medieval kabbalah. It focuses on the letters alef, mem, and tau, the consonants of the word emet, “truth,” which stand respectively for beginning, middle, and end, the three points of the curvature of the timeline. The correlation of truth and divinity underscores that truth, which embodies in its semiotic constellation the triadic structure of temporality, is the mark of the divine eternally becoming in time. The letters of emet are examined to discern something of the truth of time manifestly concealed in the time of truth, the beginning that cannot begin if it is to be the beginning, the middle that remarks the place of origin and destiny, and the end that is the figuration of the impossible disclosing the impossibility of figuration. Linear time is eternalized in the circular rhythms of the sacred time of liturgy and ritual, a process exemplified especially in the celebration of Sabbath.
Romila Thapar
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- October 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780195637984
- eISBN:
- 9780199081912
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195637984.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, Indian History
This chapter assesses Western ideas about early Indian notions of time and history. At the turn of the eighteenth century, the theory emerged that the Indian sense of time was entirely cyclic, was ...
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This chapter assesses Western ideas about early Indian notions of time and history. At the turn of the eighteenth century, the theory emerged that the Indian sense of time was entirely cyclic, was tied into infinite recurring cycles, and did not therefore recognize historical change; and in the absence of a sense of history there was no differentiation between myth and history. Cyclic time was seen as diametrically opposite to linear time and linear time was associated with dialectical change. Two hundred years later, the received wisdom on the subject remains largely unchanged. The chapter discusses that constructions of time in early India are also linked to the study of astronomy and mathematics. It argues that the cyclic time too has a genesis and a termination and its dichotomy with linear time is not as distinct as it seems. Narratives in this period, therefore, have an underlying sense of time: it is sequential, moving from the earliest to the most recentLess
This chapter assesses Western ideas about early Indian notions of time and history. At the turn of the eighteenth century, the theory emerged that the Indian sense of time was entirely cyclic, was tied into infinite recurring cycles, and did not therefore recognize historical change; and in the absence of a sense of history there was no differentiation between myth and history. Cyclic time was seen as diametrically opposite to linear time and linear time was associated with dialectical change. Two hundred years later, the received wisdom on the subject remains largely unchanged. The chapter discusses that constructions of time in early India are also linked to the study of astronomy and mathematics. It argues that the cyclic time too has a genesis and a termination and its dichotomy with linear time is not as distinct as it seems. Narratives in this period, therefore, have an underlying sense of time: it is sequential, moving from the earliest to the most recent
Jennifer Pacenza
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780823251254
- eISBN:
- 9780823252848
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823251254.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, Shakespeare Studies
This chapter examines Shakespeare and Donne’s use of the die pun, referring both to mortal death and orgasmic death, in order to argue that the works of both authors utilize the die pun as an escape ...
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This chapter examines Shakespeare and Donne’s use of the die pun, referring both to mortal death and orgasmic death, in order to argue that the works of both authors utilize the die pun as an escape from the confines and damages of linear time through the pure potentiality of embodied time. Throughout Songs and Sonnets, Donne uses imagery of perpetual, pre-orgasmic sex as a way to imagine escaping the destructive passages of time. Shakespeare uses the same pun to create productive, autoerotic self-replication in the first fifteen sonnets to the Young Man. For Shakespeare and Donne, language, specifically the die pun, is a vehicle for the manipulation of both meaning and time. Puns, as these two poets deploy them, deny both a unifying central meaning and diametrically opposed binary meanings; instead, they create a multiplicity of meanings manifested in embodied time.Less
This chapter examines Shakespeare and Donne’s use of the die pun, referring both to mortal death and orgasmic death, in order to argue that the works of both authors utilize the die pun as an escape from the confines and damages of linear time through the pure potentiality of embodied time. Throughout Songs and Sonnets, Donne uses imagery of perpetual, pre-orgasmic sex as a way to imagine escaping the destructive passages of time. Shakespeare uses the same pun to create productive, autoerotic self-replication in the first fifteen sonnets to the Young Man. For Shakespeare and Donne, language, specifically the die pun, is a vehicle for the manipulation of both meaning and time. Puns, as these two poets deploy them, deny both a unifying central meaning and diametrically opposed binary meanings; instead, they create a multiplicity of meanings manifested in embodied time.
Karol Berger
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520250918
- eISBN:
- 9780520933699
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520250918.003.0001
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
This chapter introduces the main themes and arguments of the book, claiming that, in the later eighteenth century, European art music began to take seriously the flow of time from past to future. ...
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This chapter introduces the main themes and arguments of the book, claiming that, in the later eighteenth century, European art music began to take seriously the flow of time from past to future. Until then, music was simply “in time”; “earlier” and “later” mattered little to the way it was experienced and understood. From that point on, music added the experience of linear time, of time's arrow, to its essential subject matter. It could no longer be experienced with understanding unless one recognized the temporal ordering of events. The chapter also argues that this change in the shape of musical time was not a development internal to music alone, but rather, with the onset of modernity, part of a larger transformation in the way educated Europeans began to conceive of time.Less
This chapter introduces the main themes and arguments of the book, claiming that, in the later eighteenth century, European art music began to take seriously the flow of time from past to future. Until then, music was simply “in time”; “earlier” and “later” mattered little to the way it was experienced and understood. From that point on, music added the experience of linear time, of time's arrow, to its essential subject matter. It could no longer be experienced with understanding unless one recognized the temporal ordering of events. The chapter also argues that this change in the shape of musical time was not a development internal to music alone, but rather, with the onset of modernity, part of a larger transformation in the way educated Europeans began to conceive of time.
J. A. Burrow
- Published in print:
- 1988
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198117551
- eISBN:
- 9780191670985
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198117551.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, Early and Medieval Literature
This chapter discusses historians, preachers, and exegetes who employ a variety of schemes and seek to relate the ages of Man to temporal patterns observable elsewhere. These patterns can be the ...
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This chapter discusses historians, preachers, and exegetes who employ a variety of schemes and seek to relate the ages of Man to temporal patterns observable elsewhere. These patterns can be the cycles of the year, month, and day, and the linear time of history. Thus the most widely known of these schemes relates the six ages of the individual man to the six ages of history.Less
This chapter discusses historians, preachers, and exegetes who employ a variety of schemes and seek to relate the ages of Man to temporal patterns observable elsewhere. These patterns can be the cycles of the year, month, and day, and the linear time of history. Thus the most widely known of these schemes relates the six ages of the individual man to the six ages of history.
Karol Berger
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520250918
- eISBN:
- 9780520933699
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520250918.003.0006
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
This chapter tells the story of the transition from the premodern Christian moral-political outlook to the modern post-Christian worldview, providing a larger context for the musical developments, a ...
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This chapter tells the story of the transition from the premodern Christian moral-political outlook to the modern post-Christian worldview, providing a larger context for the musical developments, a context for understanding how people got, in a mere sixty years, from a work like the St. Matthew Passion to a work like Don Giovanni. It presents the perspective from which the music is seen here, recounting the emergence of human autonomy and a consequent transformation in the fundamental experience and understanding of how time is shaped. This is the story of how people exchanged time's cycle for time's arrow, and why. In their thinking about both the moral and the natural realms, the moderns shifted the balance of their esteem decisively from eternity, rest, and immutability toward time, motion, and change. Modernity, scientific as well as moral-political, is at bottom an attempt to emancipate linear time.Less
This chapter tells the story of the transition from the premodern Christian moral-political outlook to the modern post-Christian worldview, providing a larger context for the musical developments, a context for understanding how people got, in a mere sixty years, from a work like the St. Matthew Passion to a work like Don Giovanni. It presents the perspective from which the music is seen here, recounting the emergence of human autonomy and a consequent transformation in the fundamental experience and understanding of how time is shaped. This is the story of how people exchanged time's cycle for time's arrow, and why. In their thinking about both the moral and the natural realms, the moderns shifted the balance of their esteem decisively from eternity, rest, and immutability toward time, motion, and change. Modernity, scientific as well as moral-political, is at bottom an attempt to emancipate linear time.
Karol Berger
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520250918
- eISBN:
- 9780520933699
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520250918.003.0005
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
This chapter returns to the Passion's opening chorus to ask why it is here, before the story of the Passion even gets under way, that Bach wants to abolish time. It shows that in the Passion, time is ...
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This chapter returns to the Passion's opening chorus to ask why it is here, before the story of the Passion even gets under way, that Bach wants to abolish time. It shows that in the Passion, time is nested within the structurally and ontologically more primordial timeless eternity embodied, as it happens, in what is musically the work's most substantial layer. The story of humanity that is the implied context of Jesus's story possesses the same complex temporality, the same embedding of the linear flow of time within the framework of eternity which people find in Bach's setting. The linear time of human earthly history is not infinite; it had a beginning and will come to an end. “Before” and “after” there is God's infinite time, eternity. It is this fundamental structure of irreversible time embedded in eternity that Bach replicates in the Passion.Less
This chapter returns to the Passion's opening chorus to ask why it is here, before the story of the Passion even gets under way, that Bach wants to abolish time. It shows that in the Passion, time is nested within the structurally and ontologically more primordial timeless eternity embodied, as it happens, in what is musically the work's most substantial layer. The story of humanity that is the implied context of Jesus's story possesses the same complex temporality, the same embedding of the linear flow of time within the framework of eternity which people find in Bach's setting. The linear time of human earthly history is not infinite; it had a beginning and will come to an end. “Before” and “after” there is God's infinite time, eternity. It is this fundamental structure of irreversible time embedded in eternity that Bach replicates in the Passion.
Karol Berger
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520250918
- eISBN:
- 9780520933699
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520250918.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
This book examines works by Monteverdi, Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven to support two claims: first, that it was only in the later eighteenth century that music began to take the flow of time from the ...
More
This book examines works by Monteverdi, Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven to support two claims: first, that it was only in the later eighteenth century that music began to take the flow of time from the past to the future seriously; second, that this change in the structure of musical time was an aspect of a larger transformation in the way educated Europeans began to imagine and think about time with the onset of modernity, a part of a shift from the premodern Christian outlook to the modern post-Christian worldview. Until this historical moment, as the author illustrates in his analysis of Bach's St. Matthew Passion, music was simply “in time.” Its successive events unfolded one after another, but the distinction between past and future, earlier and later, was not central to the way the music was experienced and understood. However, after the shift, as the author finds in looking at Mozart's Don Giovanni, the experience of linear time is transformed into music's essential subject matter; the cycle of time unbends and becomes an arrow. The book complements these musical case studies with a survey of the philosophical, theological, and literary trends influencing artists during this period.Less
This book examines works by Monteverdi, Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven to support two claims: first, that it was only in the later eighteenth century that music began to take the flow of time from the past to the future seriously; second, that this change in the structure of musical time was an aspect of a larger transformation in the way educated Europeans began to imagine and think about time with the onset of modernity, a part of a shift from the premodern Christian outlook to the modern post-Christian worldview. Until this historical moment, as the author illustrates in his analysis of Bach's St. Matthew Passion, music was simply “in time.” Its successive events unfolded one after another, but the distinction between past and future, earlier and later, was not central to the way the music was experienced and understood. However, after the shift, as the author finds in looking at Mozart's Don Giovanni, the experience of linear time is transformed into music's essential subject matter; the cycle of time unbends and becomes an arrow. The book complements these musical case studies with a survey of the philosophical, theological, and literary trends influencing artists during this period.
Ray Huffaker, Marco Bittelli, and Rodolfo Rosa
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- February 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198782933
- eISBN:
- 9780191826153
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198782933.001.0001
- Subject:
- Physics, Theoretical, Computational, and Statistical Physics
In the process of data analysis, the investigator is often facing highly-volatile and random-appearing observed data. A vast body of literature shows that the assumption of underlying stochastic ...
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In the process of data analysis, the investigator is often facing highly-volatile and random-appearing observed data. A vast body of literature shows that the assumption of underlying stochastic processes was not necessarily representing the nature of the processes under investigation and, when other tools were used, deterministic features emerged. Non Linear Time Series Analysis (NLTS) allows researchers to test whether observed volatility conceals systematic non linear behavior, and to rigorously characterize governing dynamics. Behavioral patterns detected by non linear time series analysis, along with scientific principles and other expert information, guide the specification of mechanistic models that serve to explain real-world behavior rather than merely reproducing it. Often there is a misconception regarding the complexity of the level of mathematics needed to understand and utilize the tools of NLTS (for instance Chaos theory). However, mathematics used in NLTS is much simpler than many other subjects of science, such as mathematical topology, relativity or particle physics. For this reason, the tools of NLTS have been confined and utilized mostly in the fields of mathematics and physics. However, many natural phenomena investigated I many fields have been revealing deterministic non linear structures. In this book we aim at presenting the theory and the empirical of NLTS to a broader audience, to make this very powerful area of science available to many scientific areas. This book targets students and professionals in physics, engineering, biology, agriculture, economy and social sciences as a textbook in Nonlinear Time Series Analysis (NLTS) using the R computer language.Less
In the process of data analysis, the investigator is often facing highly-volatile and random-appearing observed data. A vast body of literature shows that the assumption of underlying stochastic processes was not necessarily representing the nature of the processes under investigation and, when other tools were used, deterministic features emerged. Non Linear Time Series Analysis (NLTS) allows researchers to test whether observed volatility conceals systematic non linear behavior, and to rigorously characterize governing dynamics. Behavioral patterns detected by non linear time series analysis, along with scientific principles and other expert information, guide the specification of mechanistic models that serve to explain real-world behavior rather than merely reproducing it. Often there is a misconception regarding the complexity of the level of mathematics needed to understand and utilize the tools of NLTS (for instance Chaos theory). However, mathematics used in NLTS is much simpler than many other subjects of science, such as mathematical topology, relativity or particle physics. For this reason, the tools of NLTS have been confined and utilized mostly in the fields of mathematics and physics. However, many natural phenomena investigated I many fields have been revealing deterministic non linear structures. In this book we aim at presenting the theory and the empirical of NLTS to a broader audience, to make this very powerful area of science available to many scientific areas. This book targets students and professionals in physics, engineering, biology, agriculture, economy and social sciences as a textbook in Nonlinear Time Series Analysis (NLTS) using the R computer language.
Sarah Clift
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780823254200
- eISBN:
- 9780823261161
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823254200.003.0002
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
This chapter draws on texts by Walter Benjamin and Hannah Arendt to establish the framework of the book as a whole. For both Arendt and Benjamin, the narrative form is the predominant expression of ...
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This chapter draws on texts by Walter Benjamin and Hannah Arendt to establish the framework of the book as a whole. For both Arendt and Benjamin, the narrative form is the predominant expression of historical memory, and this chapter emphasizes how both thinkers articulate its relation to the finitude of human experience by virtue of its having a beginning, middle, and an end. While Arendt argues that this structure has been lost in the open-endedness of modern conceptions of progress and Benjamin suggests that its loss has contributed to the demise of storytelling as individual remembrance, the latter nonetheless suggests that something of human finitude has been retained in modernity, even within its commitment to never-ending progress. In the course of the exploration, the chapter argues that this structure of open-endedness can provide a resource for theorizing historical narratives in terms of their withheld endings, or as an experience of reading about the past that is charged with a future-oriented suspense. It pursues this jarring experience of reading the past as one which has the potential to suspend or interrupt a straight-forward conception of linear time.Less
This chapter draws on texts by Walter Benjamin and Hannah Arendt to establish the framework of the book as a whole. For both Arendt and Benjamin, the narrative form is the predominant expression of historical memory, and this chapter emphasizes how both thinkers articulate its relation to the finitude of human experience by virtue of its having a beginning, middle, and an end. While Arendt argues that this structure has been lost in the open-endedness of modern conceptions of progress and Benjamin suggests that its loss has contributed to the demise of storytelling as individual remembrance, the latter nonetheless suggests that something of human finitude has been retained in modernity, even within its commitment to never-ending progress. In the course of the exploration, the chapter argues that this structure of open-endedness can provide a resource for theorizing historical narratives in terms of their withheld endings, or as an experience of reading about the past that is charged with a future-oriented suspense. It pursues this jarring experience of reading the past as one which has the potential to suspend or interrupt a straight-forward conception of linear time.
Michael Fuchs
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- March 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781617032936
- eISBN:
- 9781617032943
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781617032936.003.0006
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Television
This chapter analyzes the television series, Supernatural, which breaks traditional linear narration in numerous episodes. It argues that by departing from a chronological structure and also ...
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This chapter analyzes the television series, Supernatural, which breaks traditional linear narration in numerous episodes. It argues that by departing from a chronological structure and also deconstructing seemingly fixed temporal markers such as death, Supernatural self-reflexively draws attention to the constructed nature of (television) narratives while also highlighting the cultural construction that is the concept of linear time. This program is thus indicative of a larger trend in our contemporary society in which the differentiation between objective and subjective time has evolved into conceiving of temporality as discontinuous and fragmented.Less
This chapter analyzes the television series, Supernatural, which breaks traditional linear narration in numerous episodes. It argues that by departing from a chronological structure and also deconstructing seemingly fixed temporal markers such as death, Supernatural self-reflexively draws attention to the constructed nature of (television) narratives while also highlighting the cultural construction that is the concept of linear time. This program is thus indicative of a larger trend in our contemporary society in which the differentiation between objective and subjective time has evolved into conceiving of temporality as discontinuous and fragmented.
Mette Bundvad
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- October 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780198739708
- eISBN:
- 9780191802652
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198739708.003.0004
- Subject:
- Religion, Biblical Studies
Chapter 3 offers a close reading of the book’s framing poems. In these two texts, the narrator of Qohelet outlines the understanding of time, upon which he continues to build throughout his book. The ...
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Chapter 3 offers a close reading of the book’s framing poems. In these two texts, the narrator of Qohelet outlines the understanding of time, upon which he continues to build throughout his book. The framing poems reflect explicitly upon the cosmic, temporal structure, describing it as a reality of continuous repetition. They consider how the human experience of life in time fits within this temporal framework, focusing in particular on the tensions between the cosmic, temporal reality and the life-experience of the individual. The framing poems argue that there is no real human continuity in time to match that of the world. Rather, the individual’s finite existence, linearly shaped, is on a collision course with the cosmic temporal order. In particular, structured world time hinders human cognition: human beings are not able to understand the temporal reality within which they live. An excursus discusses the main leitmotif of the book, hebel.Less
Chapter 3 offers a close reading of the book’s framing poems. In these two texts, the narrator of Qohelet outlines the understanding of time, upon which he continues to build throughout his book. The framing poems reflect explicitly upon the cosmic, temporal structure, describing it as a reality of continuous repetition. They consider how the human experience of life in time fits within this temporal framework, focusing in particular on the tensions between the cosmic, temporal reality and the life-experience of the individual. The framing poems argue that there is no real human continuity in time to match that of the world. Rather, the individual’s finite existence, linearly shaped, is on a collision course with the cosmic temporal order. In particular, structured world time hinders human cognition: human beings are not able to understand the temporal reality within which they live. An excursus discusses the main leitmotif of the book, hebel.
Karol Berger
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520250918
- eISBN:
- 9780520933699
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520250918.003.0011
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
This chapter shows the extent to which the self-confidence that culminated in The Magic Flute was undermined as the Revolution failed to achieve its democratic goals, arguing that the traditional ...
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This chapter shows the extent to which the self-confidence that culminated in The Magic Flute was undermined as the Revolution failed to achieve its democratic goals, arguing that the traditional image of Beethoven as the tone poet of the heroic Revolutionary and Napoleonic history, while not false, is one-sided. The Beethovenian abstraction out of time is the obverse of the Beethovenian heroic quest and its temporal teleology. Similarly to Rousseau's writing, Beethoven's composition is torn between the ideal of engagement in the historical social world and the wish to disengage from it, to escape into the private refuge beyond or within. In Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, the ideal of engagement in the historical social world of an emancipating autonomous humanity is nostalgically commemorated as an infinitely postponed utopia, thus transcending in a complex way the simple opposition of cyclical and linear time.Less
This chapter shows the extent to which the self-confidence that culminated in The Magic Flute was undermined as the Revolution failed to achieve its democratic goals, arguing that the traditional image of Beethoven as the tone poet of the heroic Revolutionary and Napoleonic history, while not false, is one-sided. The Beethovenian abstraction out of time is the obverse of the Beethovenian heroic quest and its temporal teleology. Similarly to Rousseau's writing, Beethoven's composition is torn between the ideal of engagement in the historical social world and the wish to disengage from it, to escape into the private refuge beyond or within. In Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, the ideal of engagement in the historical social world of an emancipating autonomous humanity is nostalgically commemorated as an infinitely postponed utopia, thus transcending in a complex way the simple opposition of cyclical and linear time.
João P. Hespanha
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780691175218
- eISBN:
- 9781400885442
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691175218.003.0018
- Subject:
- Mathematics, Logic / Computer Science / Mathematical Philosophy
This chapter focuses on the computation of the saddle-point equilibrium of a zero-sum continuous time dynamic game in a state-feedback policy. It begins by considering the solution for two-player ...
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This chapter focuses on the computation of the saddle-point equilibrium of a zero-sum continuous time dynamic game in a state-feedback policy. It begins by considering the solution for two-player zero sum dynamic games in continuous time, assuming a finite horizon integral cost that Player 1 wants to minimize and Player 2 wants to maximize, and taking into account a state feedback information structure. Continuous time dynamic programming can also be used to construct saddle-point equilibria in state-feedback policies. The discussion then turns to continuous time linear quadratic dynamic games and the use of dynamic programming to construct a saddle-point equilibrium in a state-feedback policy for a two-player zero sum differential game with variable termination time. The chapter also describes pursuit-evasion games before concluding with a practice exercise and the corresponding solution.Less
This chapter focuses on the computation of the saddle-point equilibrium of a zero-sum continuous time dynamic game in a state-feedback policy. It begins by considering the solution for two-player zero sum dynamic games in continuous time, assuming a finite horizon integral cost that Player 1 wants to minimize and Player 2 wants to maximize, and taking into account a state feedback information structure. Continuous time dynamic programming can also be used to construct saddle-point equilibria in state-feedback policies. The discussion then turns to continuous time linear quadratic dynamic games and the use of dynamic programming to construct a saddle-point equilibrium in a state-feedback policy for a two-player zero sum differential game with variable termination time. The chapter also describes pursuit-evasion games before concluding with a practice exercise and the corresponding solution.
Ingrid Erickson and Melissa Mazmanian
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- December 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780198782858
- eISBN:
- 9780191826047
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198782858.003.0011
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Organization Studies
Modern work is intensely oriented to a dominant temporal logic in which time is regarded as chunkable, single-purpose, linear, and ownable. This logic is embedded in digital devices and applications ...
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Modern work is intensely oriented to a dominant temporal logic in which time is regarded as chunkable, single-purpose, linear, and ownable. This logic is embedded in digital devices and applications by engineers and designers who celebrate efficiency and productivity. Amid this reality of “circumscribed time,” however, we find an increasing number of individuals who are rejecting temporal norms. Some choose to opt out by becoming temporal rebels, but others engage in forms of temporal entrepreneurship, pushing back against established temporal norms by articulating innovative and risky new ideas of time in their daily lives. The authors suggest that these entrepreneurial practices may point the way to legitimating and institutionalizing new social norms and a more holistic version of time in the future.Less
Modern work is intensely oriented to a dominant temporal logic in which time is regarded as chunkable, single-purpose, linear, and ownable. This logic is embedded in digital devices and applications by engineers and designers who celebrate efficiency and productivity. Amid this reality of “circumscribed time,” however, we find an increasing number of individuals who are rejecting temporal norms. Some choose to opt out by becoming temporal rebels, but others engage in forms of temporal entrepreneurship, pushing back against established temporal norms by articulating innovative and risky new ideas of time in their daily lives. The authors suggest that these entrepreneurial practices may point the way to legitimating and institutionalizing new social norms and a more holistic version of time in the future.
Karol Berger
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520250918
- eISBN:
- 9780520933699
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520250918.003.0008
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
This chapter presents detailed readings of several celebrated ensembles—specifically the Figaro Sextet, the Idomeneo Quartet, the Don Giovanni Quartet, the first-act Figaro Trio, and the Don Giovanni ...
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This chapter presents detailed readings of several celebrated ensembles—specifically the Figaro Sextet, the Idomeneo Quartet, the Don Giovanni Quartet, the first-act Figaro Trio, and the Don Giovanni Sextet. It aims to show the distance Mozart could put between himself and traditional formal patterns when the dramatic occasion required to show that linear, future-oriented time can acquire a variety of highly individual shapes.Less
This chapter presents detailed readings of several celebrated ensembles—specifically the Figaro Sextet, the Idomeneo Quartet, the Don Giovanni Quartet, the first-act Figaro Trio, and the Don Giovanni Sextet. It aims to show the distance Mozart could put between himself and traditional formal patterns when the dramatic occasion required to show that linear, future-oriented time can acquire a variety of highly individual shapes.
