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Time & Society
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Gushing Time

Modernity and the multiplicity of temporal homes

Eyal Chowers

Political Science Department, Tel-Aviv University, Ramat-Aviv, Tel-Aviv, Israel 69978; chowers{at}ccsg.tau.ac.il

According to some theorists (such as Agnes Heller) modern individuals no longer experience space as the anchor of their identity; they have become ‘geographically promiscuous’, changing their place of residency according to their personal circumstances and prospects for fulfillment. Instead, moderns have embraced the absolute present – the time of global culture – as the center of their identity. This article criticizes such claims. It suggests, first, that the absolute present is not the single temporal home available for late moderns, and that it coexists with singular conceptions of the past (semicyclicalism) and the profane (cosmopolitan) future as alternative homes; second, that in modernity spatial and temporal homelessness went hand in hand, rather than the former displacing the latter. Finally, it is suggested that the multiplicity of spatial and temporal homes available for late moderns calls for a flexible conception of selfhood, one that is able to incorporate this multiplicity and to welcome the ensuing homelessness within the self's own home(s).

Key Words: absolute present • homelessness • profane future • semicyclicalism

Time & Society, Vol. 11, No. 2-3, 233-249 (2002)
DOI: 10.1177/0961463X02011002004
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