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This chapter examines how transnational companies make use of what it calls time arbitrage—the exploitation of time discrepancies between geographical labor markets to make a profit. The extension of work hours through global outsourcing raises the possibility of a 24-hour work cycle. This means long hours for offshore Indian workers. The other option is the direct adoption of Western timings in offshore offices. This translates into permanent night shifts for workers as spatial and temporal disorientation are neatly combined. The chapter considers the impact of offshore workers' long, busy, and odd hours on family and friends as well as mental and physical health. It highlights the tension between the network time of corporate globalization and the prosaic rhythms of ordinary life. It shows that time arbitrage has resulted in long work hours, an intense work pace, and temporal displacement among Indian offshore workers.

Human language and cognition are often described as having the property of displacement. Displacement may be both temporal and spatial. Thus, we may think or communicate about events that occurred at some time in the past or that will occur at some time in the future. This ability is referred to as cognitive time travel, and memories of personal events that occurred at specific times in the past are referred to as episodic memories. People also can think or communicate about places distant from their current location, and we might call this cognitive spatial travel. This chapter examines whether these displacement abilities of humans can be found in animals. With regard to the temporal displacement question, it considers the hypothesis that animals are “stuck in time.” A parallel “stuck-in-space” hypothesis may be advanced regarding spatial displacement. This chapter reviews some of the evidence on the stuck-in-time hypothesis concerning both the possibility of episodic memory in animals and the anticipation of future events. The questions of temporal and spatial displacement in animal cognition are discussed.

While restricting its main narrative to the tenth year of the siege of Troy, the Iliad broadens its temporal horizon by alluding to themes more at home either earlier or later in the war. Similarly, Achilles is portrayed simultaneously as a youthful hero and as an experienced warrior. Achilles’ childhood instructors included both Cheiron the centaur, whose role is downplayed in the poem, and his father’s retainer Phoenix, who serves to normalize the hero’s educational experience. In the course of the Iliad Achilles progresses from a naive, impetuous hero who experiences a crisis of disillusionment with a value system that has let him down, to a withdrawn warrior who rethinks the assumptions that governed his education, to a mature figure who experiences a crisis of empathy for King Priam of Troy, and who becomes an instructional figure in his turn as he offers his aged adversary consolation and advice.