Time and Globalization: An interdisciplinary dialogue

by Paul Huebener (Editor), Susie O'Brien (Editor), Tony Porter (Editor)

Both academic and popular representations of globalization, critical or celebratory, have tended to conceptualize it primarily in spatial terms, rather than simultaneously temporal ones. However, time, in both its ideational and material dimensions, has played an important role in mediating and shaping the directions, courses, and outcomes of globalization. Focusing on the intersection of time and globalization, this book aims to create an interdisciplinary dialogue between the (largely separated) respective literatures on each of these themes. This dialogue will be of both theoretical and empirical significance, since many urgent issues of contemporary human affairs―from large epochal problems such as climate change, to everyday struggles with the dynamics of social acceleration―involve a complex interplay between temporality and globalization. A critical understanding of the relationship between time and globalization will not only facilitate innovative thinking about globalization; it will also foster our imagination of alternatives that may lead to more socially just and sustainable futures. This innovative collection illustrates the theoretical benefits of bridging time with globalization and also exemplifies the methodological strengths of engaging in cutting-edge, interdisciplinary scholarship to better understand the changing economic, social, political, cultural and ecological dynamics in this globalizing world. This book was originally published as a special issue of the journal Globalizations .

132 pages, Hardcover

Published May 9, 2017

About the author

Paul Huebener (he/him) is a professor of English at Athabasca University in Canada. His research focuses on critical sleep studies, critical time studies, and the environmental humanities, particularly in the context of literatures in Canada.

Paul’s newest book, Restless in Sleep Country: Imagination and the Cultural Politics of Sleep, examines cultural representations of sleep in Canada, from mattress commercials and comic books to bedtime story phone apps. By guiding the reader through this imaginative landscape, the book shows how to develop a critical literacy of sleep.

For a brief introduction to Paul’s work on slumber, see "How Art and Literature Can Help Us Rethink Our Problems with Sleep".