Skip to main content

Part of the book series: New Comparisons in World Literature ((NCWL))

  • 206 Accesses

Abstract

The conclusion provides a summary of main aspects of non-synchronism as a critical concept. After reinstating the materialist and political valences of the term, the conclusion connects the term to a constellation of related and overlapping notions: anachronism, unequal development, longue durée, kairos and the permanent revolution, drawing on a wide range of authors including Georges Didi-Huberman, Fernand Braudel, Antonio Negri and Leon Trotsky. In contrast to anachronism, non-synchronism involves an emphasis on dialectical unity and combination. In contrast to the concept of kairos, the opportune moment or here-and-now constitutive of political action, non-synchronism indicates the unevenness of the social whole in the late imperialist scenario of capitalist globalisation.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Works Cited

  • Agamben, Giorgio. 2005. The Time That Remains: A Commentary on the Letter to the Romans. Trans. Patricia Dailey. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bloch, Ernst. 1986. The Principle of Hope, vol. 1. Trans. Neville and Stephen Plaice and Paul Knight. Cambridge: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boer, Roland. 2013. Revolution in the Event: The Problem of Kairos. Theory, Culture & Society 30.2: 116–134.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Braudel, Fernand. 2009. History and the Social Sciences: The Longue Durée. Trans. Immanuel Wallerstein. Review (Fernand Braudel Center) 32.2: 171–203.

    Google Scholar 

  • Carroll, Khadija von Zinnenburg. 2016. Art in the Time of Colony. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Casarino, Cesare. 2003. Time Matters: Marx, Negri, Agamben, and the Corporeal. Strategies 16.2: 185–206.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chambers, Iain. 2017. Art as Anachronism. http://thirdtext.org/carroll-chambers-review/. Accessed 30 July 2019.

  • Didi-Huberman, Georges. 2000. Devant le temps. Histoire de l’art et anachronisme des images. Paris: Minuit.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2003. Before the Image, Before Time: The Sovereignty of Anachronism. In Claire Farago and Robert Zwijnenberg, eds. Compelling Visuality: The Work of Art in and Out of History. University of Minnesota Press, 31–44.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hutchings, Kimberly. 2008. Time and World Politics: Thinking the Present. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jameson, Fredric. 1981. Marxism and Form. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2009. Valences of the Dialectic. London: Verso.

    Google Scholar 

  • Liu, Joyce, et al. 2012. Exigency of Time: A Conversation with Harry Harootunian and Moishe Postone. Concentric: Literary and Cultural Studies 38.2: 7–43.

    Google Scholar 

  • Löwy, Michael. 1981. Politics of Combined and Uneven Development: Theory of Permanent Revolution. London: Verso.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2007. The Marxism of Trotsky’s “Results and Prospects.” In Leon Trotsky, ed. The Permanent Revolution cit., 7–14.

    Google Scholar 

  • Marx, Karl. 1975. Early Writings. Trans. Rodney Livingstone and Gregor Benton. London: Penguin.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1990. Capital, vol. 1. Trans. Ben Fowkes. London: Penguin.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1993. Grundrisse. Trans. Martin Nicolaus. London: Penguin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Musto, Marcello. 2008. History, Production and Method in the 1857 ‘Introduction.’ In Marcello Musto, ed. Karl Marx’s Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy 150 Years Later. New York: Routledge, 3–32.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Nagel, Alexander and Christopher Wood. 2005. Toward a New Model of Renaissance Anachronism. The Art Bulletin 87.3: 403–415.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Negri, Antonio. 2003. Time for Revolution. Trans. Matteo Mandarini. London: Bloomsbury.

    Google Scholar 

  • Osborne, Peter. 2008. Marx and the Philosophy of Time. Radical Philosophy, 147. https://www.radicalphilosophy.com/article/marx-and-the-philosophy-of-time/. Accessed 15 January 2019.

  • Pensky, Max. 2004. Method and Time: Benjamin’s Dialectical Images. In David Ferris, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Walter Benjamin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 177–198.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Postone, Moishe. 1993. Time, Labour and Social Domination. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Robbins, Bruce. 2018. What World History Does World Literature Need? In May Hawas, ed. The Routledge Companion to World Literature and World History. London and New York: Routledge, 194–206.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Smith, John E. 2002. Time and Qualitative Time. In Phillip Sipiora and James Baumlin, eds. Rhetoric and Kairos: Essays in History, Theory, and Praxis. Albany: SUNY Press, 46–57.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tombazos, Stavros. 2015. Time in Marx. Leiden: Brill.

    Google Scholar 

  • Trotsky, Leon. 2007. The Permanent Revolution & Results and Prospects. London: Socialist Resistance.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Filippo Menozzi .

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2020 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Menozzi, F. (2020). Conclusion: On Skipping History. In: World Literature, Non-Synchronism, and the Politics of Time. New Comparisons in World Literature. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41698-0_7

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics