The ICI Berlin announces ten post-doctoral
fellowships for the Academic Years 2016-18
fellowships for the Academic Years 2016-18
Conceptions of time and varied modes of temporal
experience seem more at odds now than ever. Hamlet’s hunch – that ‘the time is
out of joint’ – has turned into an evergreen of critical discourse. Admittedly,
ideas of physical, social, revolutionary time, internal time consciousness, or
historical experience are far from settled in their respective discourses and
practices. Yet attempts to harmonize or correlate the understanding of time and
temporal phenomena generated in different disciplines all-too quickly – and
largely with violent effect – resort to normative, if not teleological ideas of
progress, efficiency, narrative sense-making, or experiential plenitude.
experience seem more at odds now than ever. Hamlet’s hunch – that ‘the time is
out of joint’ – has turned into an evergreen of critical discourse. Admittedly,
ideas of physical, social, revolutionary time, internal time consciousness, or
historical experience are far from settled in their respective discourses and
practices. Yet attempts to harmonize or correlate the understanding of time and
temporal phenomena generated in different disciplines all-too quickly – and
largely with violent effect – resort to normative, if not teleological ideas of
progress, efficiency, narrative sense-making, or experiential plenitude.
The rich traditions of critical thinking about time
that challenge such normative ideas can, however, appear complicit with the new
temporal regimes of capitalism. For example, they are marked by the increase of
flexitime in the workplace, celebrations of discontinued employment, even
obsolescence as ‘reinventions of the self’. Additionally, the fact that the
time of cyclical crises proper to capitalism has been rendered opaque by the
proliferation of hedging and speculating on ‘futures’ or that high-frequency
trade algorithms enable transactions at posthuman speeds. With acceleration
having reached the point of evoking no longer progress but ideas of a ‘frenetic
standstill’ (Virilio, Rosa) or the end of history, it would indeed seem that
radical opposition to a particular temporal mode – such as linearly progressing
time – is neither sufficient nor necessary, but, rather, risks proving
counter-productive.
that challenge such normative ideas can, however, appear complicit with the new
temporal regimes of capitalism. For example, they are marked by the increase of
flexitime in the workplace, celebrations of discontinued employment, even
obsolescence as ‘reinventions of the self’. Additionally, the fact that the
time of cyclical crises proper to capitalism has been rendered opaque by the
proliferation of hedging and speculating on ‘futures’ or that high-frequency
trade algorithms enable transactions at posthuman speeds. With acceleration
having reached the point of evoking no longer progress but ideas of a ‘frenetic
standstill’ (Virilio, Rosa) or the end of history, it would indeed seem that
radical opposition to a particular temporal mode – such as linearly progressing
time – is neither sufficient nor necessary, but, rather, risks proving
counter-productive.
In this second instalment of the CoreProject ERRANS, we ask whether the heterogeneous relations between
discordant conceptions of time and temporality can be understood as being
‘erratically’ structured, that is, as marked by inherent misapprehensions, a
dissonance that defies regulation, and an unexpected variability. For example,
boredom or suspense challenges our confidence in the homogeneity of the flow of
time; for Fanon, decolonial struggle creates a new human being, but can only do
so by reworking the entire past from its very beginning; involuntary memory
undermines the supposedly cumulative experience of time throughout a lifetime;
Kristeva’s notion of ‘women’s time’ and queer temporalities reveal the
(hetero)normative investments in the naturalized time of reproduction;
psychotic experiences of homogeneous time unsettle our confidence that linear
time is intelligible at all, as do the divergent modifications of Newtonian
time by statistical, relativistic, and quantum mechanics; and the explosive
potential of temporal standstill undoes the dynamist model for ‘revolution’ inherited from premodern theories of planetary motion.
discordant conceptions of time and temporality can be understood as being
‘erratically’ structured, that is, as marked by inherent misapprehensions, a
dissonance that defies regulation, and an unexpected variability. For example,
boredom or suspense challenges our confidence in the homogeneity of the flow of
time; for Fanon, decolonial struggle creates a new human being, but can only do
so by reworking the entire past from its very beginning; involuntary memory
undermines the supposedly cumulative experience of time throughout a lifetime;
Kristeva’s notion of ‘women’s time’ and queer temporalities reveal the
(hetero)normative investments in the naturalized time of reproduction;
psychotic experiences of homogeneous time unsettle our confidence that linear
time is intelligible at all, as do the divergent modifications of Newtonian
time by statistical, relativistic, and quantum mechanics; and the explosive
potential of temporal standstill undoes the dynamist model for ‘revolution’ inherited from premodern theories of planetary motion.
The different temporal forms of erring provide a
possible point of departure. Thus, Homer’s Odyssey juxtaposes its hero’s
classical errantry – frequently seen as anticipating bourgeois, enlightened, or
capitalist subjectivity – with the errant ruse of Penelope’s nocturnal
unravelling of the burial shroud she is weaving during the day. These modes of
erring also need to be considered as gendered, as one could argue for many
temporal categories. Penelope’s gesture presents a paradigm for radical, that
is, ‘wilful’ resistance to the narrative strongholds on temporal experience
and, by extension, to the dictates of the exploitation of labour time that only
intensified with the creation of inactive leisure or ‘down’ time. Penelope’s
unravelling, hence, is akin to the radically negative temporalities experienced
in melancholia, obsessive-compulsive disorders, lethargy, or traumatic rupture,
ultimately raising the possibility of an ‘empty’ or even ‘dead’ time.
Similarly, neither the time that can only be killed nor the time buckling
before the deadline, neither the crawl of monotony or tedium nor the unlimited
expandability of imminence can be discounted as mere limit cases or
pathological experiences, but would have to be taken seriously as errant
misalignments of irreconcilable aspects of time.
possible point of departure. Thus, Homer’s Odyssey juxtaposes its hero’s
classical errantry – frequently seen as anticipating bourgeois, enlightened, or
capitalist subjectivity – with the errant ruse of Penelope’s nocturnal
unravelling of the burial shroud she is weaving during the day. These modes of
erring also need to be considered as gendered, as one could argue for many
temporal categories. Penelope’s gesture presents a paradigm for radical, that
is, ‘wilful’ resistance to the narrative strongholds on temporal experience
and, by extension, to the dictates of the exploitation of labour time that only
intensified with the creation of inactive leisure or ‘down’ time. Penelope’s
unravelling, hence, is akin to the radically negative temporalities experienced
in melancholia, obsessive-compulsive disorders, lethargy, or traumatic rupture,
ultimately raising the possibility of an ‘empty’ or even ‘dead’ time.
Similarly, neither the time that can only be killed nor the time buckling
before the deadline, neither the crawl of monotony or tedium nor the unlimited
expandability of imminence can be discounted as mere limit cases or
pathological experiences, but would have to be taken seriously as errant
misalignments of irreconcilable aspects of time.
A radical discordance of Euro-American time becomes
most blatantly manifest in what Johannes Fabian has termed ‘the schizogenic use
of time’ by well-intentioned anthropologists: interacting with indigenous
peoples in one time and writing about them in another, they perpetuate a
systematic temporal relegation that in colonial regimes was based on
assumptions about non-Western peoples living outside of time and needing to be
brought up to date or ‘civilized’. These vast lingering temporal injustices,
but also the most modest temporal complications of affective experience remain
linked to the peculiar afterlife of history – past the closed gardens of
salvation and redemption, past (post-)Hegelian mobilizations, past other
narrative closures. Much recent work on the temporal structures and textures of
the everyday – changing dramatically in a media culture going ‘live’ 24/7 –,
the monotonous, boredom, but also the event, trauma, catastrophe, or end, draws
its power from a confrontation with the frames of history, enlarged, crooked,
manipulated, or broken as they may be.
most blatantly manifest in what Johannes Fabian has termed ‘the schizogenic use
of time’ by well-intentioned anthropologists: interacting with indigenous
peoples in one time and writing about them in another, they perpetuate a
systematic temporal relegation that in colonial regimes was based on
assumptions about non-Western peoples living outside of time and needing to be
brought up to date or ‘civilized’. These vast lingering temporal injustices,
but also the most modest temporal complications of affective experience remain
linked to the peculiar afterlife of history – past the closed gardens of
salvation and redemption, past (post-)Hegelian mobilizations, past other
narrative closures. Much recent work on the temporal structures and textures of
the everyday – changing dramatically in a media culture going ‘live’ 24/7 –,
the monotonous, boredom, but also the event, trauma, catastrophe, or end, draws
its power from a confrontation with the frames of history, enlarged, crooked,
manipulated, or broken as they may be.
We welcome contributions from a wide variety of fields
and disciplines, pertaining, for example, to:
and disciplines, pertaining, for example, to:
- Incompatible temporalities conjured up in
aesthetic conceptions of vitality and vitalist legacies of the life
sciences - Decolonizing metropolitan time, both questioning
claims of belatedness at the periphery, and embracing indigenous
epistemologies of time - A queer cultivation of nostalgia, complicating
the relation to futurity - The relation of physics and philosophy regarding
the complementarity of being and becoming, reversibility and
irreversibility, or the entanglement of past, present, and future - The paradoxical mobilization and political value
of an aesthetics of untimeliness - Media-specific temporalities in the constitution
of the archive - The shifting valences of age and ageing beyond a
teleology of deathbound decline - Temporal antinomies and narratological deviations
in literature and other media - Controversies in psychoanalysis and theories of
cultural memory revolving around the concept of belatedness/retroaction
(Nachträglichkeit) - The importance of anachronism as a critical
category but also as a deliberate strategy - Fashion as an ambivalent model of disjunctive
temporalities - Ideas of survival, afterlife, and revenants
beyond standard conceptions of tradition or genealogy
The ICI Berlin invites scholars from all disciplines
to engage in a joint exploration of ERRANS, in Time. We especially
welcome applications from individuals who will contribute to diversity and
equal opportunity in scholarly research.
to engage in a joint exploration of ERRANS, in Time. We especially
welcome applications from individuals who will contribute to diversity and
equal opportunity in scholarly research.
The committed exchange between fellows is a central
aim of the Institute. Applicants should be interested in a theoretical
reflection upon the conceptual and intellectual basis of their projects and in
discussing it with fellows from other disciplines. In particular, fellows will
be expected to participate in the weekly colloquia, bi-weekly informal meetings,
and other activities of the Institute, to contribute to a common publication,
and to be resident in Berlin for the duration of the fellowship.
aim of the Institute. Applicants should be interested in a theoretical
reflection upon the conceptual and intellectual basis of their projects and in
discussing it with fellows from other disciplines. In particular, fellows will
be expected to participate in the weekly colloquia, bi-weekly informal meetings,
and other activities of the Institute, to contribute to a common publication,
and to be resident in Berlin for the duration of the fellowship.
The fellowships announced are for the academic years
2016-18 (12 September 2016 – 13 July 2018). There is no age limit, but
applicants should have obtained their PhD within ten years of the date of
appointment or have fulfilled all requirements for receiving their PhD by 1
July 2016. Stipends range from EUR 1800 to 2000 per month.
2016-18 (12 September 2016 – 13 July 2018). There is no age limit, but
applicants should have obtained their PhD within ten years of the date of
appointment or have fulfilled all requirements for receiving their PhD by 1
July 2016. Stipends range from EUR 1800 to 2000 per month.
Interested applicants should read also the description
of the Core Project ERRANS and follow the application instructions.
of the Core Project ERRANS and follow the application instructions.
Application deadline: 6 January 2016
