Against the Fetishisation of Plural Time - (Time and Periodization in History) by Nitin Sinha (Hardcover)

About the Book

It has become an unflinching belief that time is plural and temporal multiplicity is the best framework to study the relationship between time and society. Through a critical reading of existing scholarship, Sinha questions the burgeoning fetish of

Book Synopsis

From the viewpoint of social history, is time itself a plural entity or are there multiple forms of engagement in and with it? Pivoted around this question, Sinha attempts to rethink the current theory and practice of history writing by pointing the pitfalls of the growing fetishisation of plurality and the 'plural time' framework. Engaging a range of studies in History, Anthropology, and Sociology, Sinha provides a critical assessment of some of the leading frameworks on time studies, questions their foundational premises, highlights their limitations, and proposes an alternative framework that is attuned to privileging the approach of social history. The purposes of the latter, the book argues, is best served when time's irreversible character is not diluted under the weight of plurality. Plurality in time is an outcome of practices and their historicisation; plurality of time can become an empty statement. Rather than defining what time is, the book casts that inquiry into the historical mould to explore how time, as a contestatory resource, becomes part of social relationships and what it does to them when scripts of power align themselves with the control of time.

About the Author

Nitin Sinha, Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin, Germany.