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The Nick of Time: Politics, Evolution, and the Untimely
In this pathbreaking philosophical work, Elizabeth Grosz points the way toward a theory of becoming to replace the prevailing ontologies of being in social, political, and biological discourse. Arguing that theories of temporality have significant and underappreciated relevance to the social dimensions of science and the political dimensions of struggle, Grosz engages key theoretical concerns related to the reality of time. She explores the effect of time on the organization of matter and on the emergence and development of biological life. Considering how the relentless forward movement of time might be conceived in political and social terms, she begins to formulate a model of time that incorporates the future and its capacity to supersede and transform the past and present. Grosz develops her argument by juxtaposing the work of three major figures in Western Charles Darwin, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Henri Bergson. She reveals that in theorizing time as an active, positive phenomenon with its own characteristics and specific effects, each of these thinkers had a profound effect on contemporary understandings of the body in relation to time. She shows how their allied concepts of life, evolution, and becoming are manifest in the work of Gilles Deleuze and Luce Irigaray. Throughout The Nick of Time , Grosz emphasizes the political and cultural imperative to fundamentally rethink the more clearly we understand our temporal location as beings straddling the past and the future without the security of a stable and abiding present, the more transformation becomes conceivable.
336 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2004
About the author
Elizabeth Grosz
26 books75 followersElizabeth Grosz is a professor at Duke University. She has written on French philosophers, Jacques Lacan, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Luce Irigaray and Gilles Deleuze.
Grosz was awarded a Ph.D. from the Department of General Philosophy at the University of Sydney, where she became a lecturer and senior lecturer from 1978 to 1991. In 1992, she moved to Monash University to the department of comparative literature. From 1999 to 2001, she became a professor of comparative literature and English at the State University of New York at Buffalo. She taught in Women's and Gender Studies at Rutgers University from 2002 until joining Duke University in 2012.
(from Wikipedia)
Grosz was awarded a Ph.D. from the Department of General Philosophy at the University of Sydney, where she became a lecturer and senior lecturer from 1978 to 1991. In 1992, she moved to Monash University to the department of comparative literature. From 1999 to 2001, she became a professor of comparative literature and English at the State University of New York at Buffalo. She taught in Women's and Gender Studies at Rutgers University from 2002 until joining Duke University in 2012.
(from Wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
November 25, 2017
if you like this review i now have website: www.michaelkamakana.com
251117: this is a later addition: i think i might read this all the way through, the reason i did not was it refers to thinkers i have not much read eg. Nietzsche, though she probably does bring it all together... and how else am i going to read? just in my personal 'bubble'? well maybe i will reread...
first review: it has taken me much reading to decide to read only part of the book that interests me, rather than each chapter or essay: so really this four only applies to the last third of the book on henri bergson, which i wanted to read about the 'virtual', but there is little here not previously read. more interesting is description of bergson's concept of originary division between matter and memory, present and past, instinct and intelligence, i had read this before but it is always already worthwhile to have understanding confirmed. this is good. that his thoughts have political ramifications i am impressed, that his thoughts could be useful in feminist philosophy, queer theory and so on is inspiring...
251117: this is a later addition: i think i might read this all the way through, the reason i did not was it refers to thinkers i have not much read eg. Nietzsche, though she probably does bring it all together... and how else am i going to read? just in my personal 'bubble'? well maybe i will reread...
first review: it has taken me much reading to decide to read only part of the book that interests me, rather than each chapter or essay: so really this four only applies to the last third of the book on henri bergson, which i wanted to read about the 'virtual', but there is little here not previously read. more interesting is description of bergson's concept of originary division between matter and memory, present and past, instinct and intelligence, i had read this before but it is always already worthwhile to have understanding confirmed. this is good. that his thoughts have political ramifications i am impressed, that his thoughts could be useful in feminist philosophy, queer theory and so on is inspiring...
October 14, 2011
the conclusion especially made me feel kind of ecstatic!
"History produces not only the forces of domination but also the forces of resistance that press up against and are often the objects of such domination. Which is another way of saying that history, the past, is larger than the present, and is the ever-growing and ongoing possibility of resistance to the present’s imposed values, the possibility of futures not unlike the present, futures that resist and transform what dominates the present" (237).
“The resources of the previously oppressed - of women under patriarchy, of slaves under slavery, of minorities under racism, colonialism, or nationalism, of workers under capitalism, and so on -are not lost or wiped out through the structures of domination that helped to define them: they are preserved somewhere, in the past itself, with effects and traces that can be animated in a number of different contexts and terms in the present" (240).
"History produces not only the forces of domination but also the forces of resistance that press up against and are often the objects of such domination. Which is another way of saying that history, the past, is larger than the present, and is the ever-growing and ongoing possibility of resistance to the present’s imposed values, the possibility of futures not unlike the present, futures that resist and transform what dominates the present" (237).
“The resources of the previously oppressed - of women under patriarchy, of slaves under slavery, of minorities under racism, colonialism, or nationalism, of workers under capitalism, and so on -are not lost or wiped out through the structures of domination that helped to define them: they are preserved somewhere, in the past itself, with effects and traces that can be animated in a number of different contexts and terms in the present" (240).
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January 15, 2025if i had read this earlier i would have saved myself a lot time... but elizabeth has taught me that time is an infinite manifold so actually who cares
February 8, 2021
"The most radical and deeply directed projects of feminist, queer, antiracist, and postcolonial struggles involve a welcoming of then settling of previous categories, identities, and strategies, challenging the limits of present divisions and conjunctions, and reveling in the uncontainability and unpredictability of the future."
April 7, 2014
I think she has some really interesting ideas, parallels between evolution/biology and how to understand society. The importance of diversity for the resiliency of a species is one particularly good concept, and I also like how she conceptualizes the present and people's ability to transform the future in unpredictable ways. I think this is a good philosophic work. However, I find this sort of writing style to be unnecessarily complicated- there is a way to use precise, well-defined language without using so much specialized jargon that your actual points are obscured. And for me, the scientific concepts didn't always translate properly to the philosophic ideas, she would mention political applications but not expand on them, and nothing gets pulled together into a cohesive argument or narrative. I did not actually quite finish this book (one more chapter left)n ... but I don't want to force myself to read it, so I'm letting it go.
Summary: I suspect it is a great work of philosophy, but it's just not for me. I want more science and more feminist/political/sociological application and less abstract theory.
Summary: I suspect it is a great work of philosophy, but it's just not for me. I want more science and more feminist/political/sociological application and less abstract theory.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews