The Multiple Simultaneous Temporalities of Global Modernity: Pamuk, Tanpınar, Proust

Abstract

Abstract This essay proposes the theory of multiple simultaneous temporalities as a constitutive feature of global modernism. It spotlights varieties of heterogeneous time—outside but alongside the homogeneous empty time of clocks and calendars—in modernist literature. These overlapping temporalities replace the linear succession of past, present, and future with a principle of nonteleology. The multiple simultaneous temporalities of these works analogize the multiple simultaneous temporalities of global modernity. Thus the temporalization of difference that separates developed nations from developing ones is refuted by the pluralization of temporality. The simultaneity of these temporalities denies, a priori, the ideology of progress. The essay makes this point through a series of interlaced epiphanies about time, across time, staging an East-West comparison that reflects the creole nature of global modernity. It does so via readings of interconnected novels by Orhan Pamuk, Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar, and Marcel Proust.