“The Time Saver Electric Washer and Other Tales: Time as a Tool of Social Power in Canadian Fiction”

Dr. Paul Huebener is a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of English, University of Calgary. His work investigates the cultural politics of time in Canada, asking how time functions socially as a tool of power, and how literature and other imaginative responses can help us gain and promote critical temporal literacy. “Time,” Johannes Fabian writes, “much like language or money, is a carrier of significance, a form through which we define the content of relations between the Self and the Other.” Indeed, the politics of time saturate all human affairs, from the conditions of labour and everyday forms of communication, to ethical norms and visions of the future. Dr. Huebener’s work develops a set of tools and practices which foster a critical form of temporal literacy. Through readings of Canadian fiction, he identifies the importance of concepts including “time socialization stories,” “temporal privilege,” “temporal resistance,” and “multitemporality” for understanding how time is wielded as a tool of power, and how imaginative responses are key to understanding and questioning this power. This talk will take place in Social Sciences 1153. Everyone is welcome.

Location:

Social Sciences 1153

Speaker:

Dr. Paul Huebener, SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow – Department of English, University of Calgary.

More information at http://www.ucalgary.ca/events/calendar/time-saver-electric-washer-and-other-tales-time-tool-social-power-canadian-fiction