Presentism and the denial of coevalness
- In Time and the Other Johannes Fabian analysed how modern conceptions of time were “not only secularized and naturalized but also thoroughly spatialized.” According to Fabian, this was particularly visible in modern anthropology which “promoted a scheme in terms of which not only past cultures but all living societies were irrevocably placed on a temporal slope, a stream of Time – some upstream, others downstream.”3 Anthropologists attributed otherness to a distant past which was traditionally associated with cultural retardation, i.e. a lower degree of development, progress, and civilization. Cultural difference was expressed in terms of temporal distance while temporal distance was attributed to spatial remoteness. The result was a phenomenon that Fabian coined “the denial of coevalness” which pointed towards “a persistent and systematic tendency to place the referent(s) of anthropology in a Time other than the present of the producer of anthropological discourse.
Author details: | Sina RauschenbachORCiDGND |
---|---|
DOI: | https://doi.org/10.33675/2024-82538663 |
ISBN: | 978-3-8253-8663-4 |
ISBN: | 978-3-8253-9582-7 |
Title of parent work (German): | Von Neuem: Tradition und Novation in der Vormoderne |
Subtitle (English): | the descriptions of England and Ireland in the Seventeenth-Century ‘Elzevirian Republics’ |
Publisher: | Universitätsverlag Winter GmbH |
Place of publishing: | Heidelberg |
Editor(s): | Bernhard Huss |
Publication type: | Conference Proceeding |
Language: | English |
Year of first publication: | 2024 |
Publication year: | 2024 |
Release date: | 2024/06/20 |
Volume: | GRM-Beiheft 113 |
Number of pages: | 16 |
First page: | 195 |
Last Page: | 211 |
Organizational units: | Philosophische Fakultät / Institut für Jüdische Studien und Religionswissenschaft |
DDC classification: | 2 Religion / 20 Religion / 200 Religion |
License (German): | CC-BY-NC-ND - Namensnennung, nicht kommerziell, keine Bearbeitungen 4.0 International |