Temporal Topographies: an analysis of a colonial present

Appel, Serafina

Temporal Topographies: an analysis of a colonial present

Document Type

Doctoral thesis
Published Version

Author

Appel, Serafina

Director

Zabala, Santiago

Publication Date

2024-04-18

Pages

258 p.

Citation

Appel, S. Temporal Topographies: an analysis of a colonial present. Universitat Pompeu Fabra; 2024. handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10803/692514

This citation was generated automatically.

Doctoral program

Programa de Doctorat en Humanitats

Abstract

La tesis presenta un estudio de la fundación ontológica de la temporalidad y la historicidad en el pensamiento filosófico occidental. Realiza una revisión teórica del dominio del tiempo sobre el espacio y argumenta su importancia para la colonialidad mediante el análisis de narrativas temporales en espacios estéticos propios del Canadá colonial contemporánea. A través de la brecha (gap) que Hannah Arendt indicó para pensar entre pasado y futuro, la crítica de Vine Deloria Jr. a la ontología occidental centrada en el tiempo, el “ángel de la historia” de Walter Benjamin y la metafísica de la presencia, esta tesis propone un argumento para instalarse en el espacio de pensar y buscar el lugar de un presente pesado (thick present).
This thesis is a study of the ontological foundations of temporality and historicity in Western philosophical thought. It explores the dominance of time over space in a theoretical review, and argues for its significance for coloniality through analyses of temporal narratives in aesthetic spaces in contemporary settler colonial Canada. Through Hannah Arendt’s gap for thinking between past and future, Vine Deloria Jr.’s challenge to the Western time-centred ontology, Walter Benjamin’s angel of history, and thinking through the metaphysics of presence, this thesis proposes an argument for settling down in the gap for thinking and spatialising the thick present.