Origins and futures time inflected and reflected ; [the study of time, volume XIV ; selected papers from the International Society for the Study of Time's XIV triennial international conference

Origins and Futures: Time Inflected and Reflected offers an interdisciplinary approach to two fundamental often opposing concepts of time. The volume features both research on specific texts and authors as well as conceptual disciplinary reflections in the spirit of an integrated study of time. Introduction / Raji Steineck and Claudia Clausius -- SECTION I. Origins Explained -- Founder's Lecture: The Origin of the Integrated Study of Time / J.T. Fraser -- The Search for Origins as Detective Story : Detecting Datelines and The Mystery of Origins / Paul A. Harris -- On the Social Origin of Time in Language / Walter Schweidler -- The Origins of Language and Narrative Temporalities / Rosemary Huisman -- SECTION II. From Future to Origin : Temporal Inversions and Asymmetries -- Narrative Fiction : Writing towards the Origin / Sabine Gross -- Origins as Futures in the Time Plays of J.B. Priestley / Carol Fischer -- Big Science : Marching Forward to the Past / Michael Crawford -- The Past-Future Asymmetry / Friedel Weinert -- SECTION III. Futures Opened, Futures Closed -- The Human Temporal Condition between Memory and Hope / Steven Ostovich -- Bachelard's "Discontinuous Bergsonism" in Zora Neale Hurston's "Sweat" : How Self-Generation of "Pure Time" Engenders Free Choice / Patricia Engle -- Tales of Time and Terror : Walter Benjamin's Philosophy of History and the Narrative Aesthetics of Edgar Allan Poe / Marcus Bullock -- The Future of August 6th, 1945 : A Case of the "Peaceful Utilization" of Nuclear Energy in Japan / Masae Yuasa -- Forgiveness as the Opening of the Future / Karmen MacKendrick Origins and Futures: Time Inflected and Reflected provokes an interdisciplinary dialogue about culture, politics, and science's strategies to divert the relentless trajectory of time. Literature, socio-political policy, physics, among other subjects, demonstrate the human refusal to enlist in temporal determinism. Articles ranging from how detective fiction and international terrorism manipulate the narration of events, to the unlocking of political trauma through forgiveness, to the genetic archaeology of the Human Genome project and the lacunar amnesia of nuclear energy corporations, all argue that wherever human minds meet they wrestle to undo the irrevocable, the irreversible, the fixed. Although such efforts look to the future, they rarely look straight ahead. Whatever their enterprise, writers, philosophers, and scientists believe that origins are alacritous keys to future hopes and aspirations. Contributors include: Marcus Bullock, Michael Crawford, Patricia Engle, Carol Fischer, J. T. Fraser, Sabine Gross, Paul Harris, Rosemary Huisman, Karmen MacKendrick, Steven Ostovich, Walter Schweidler, Friedel Weinert, and Masae Yuasa.