Anthropologists are interested in the cross-cultural variability in conceptions of time and space. More than one hundred years ago, Durkheim (1912) insisted that the category of time was neither a universal a priori category nor an individualized processing of experience.  The category of time, like space, number, and cause, is itself a cultural product, issuing forth from words and actions in society.  In turn, the culturally specific understanding of time is foundational to individuals' attempts to exercise agency in the societies in which they live.

The course begins with a number of classical anthropological texts that set the terms of the discussion, then incorporates a number of readings from philosophy and history that have been influential on anthropological analyses of time.  Among the topics to be covered will be the importance of time and timing in politics; narrative as a structuring element of social action in time; the variations of tempo characteristic of charismatic religious experience and socialist societies; and the socio-cultural constitution of hope as a forward-looking frame for social and political acts.