Einleitung: Moderne Zeitlichkeiten und das Anthropozän

Abstract

Framed by the difficulty of coming to terms with the disruptive temporalities of the climate crisis, the proposition of the Anthropocene invites a critical re-contextualization of modern concepts of time and subjectivity. The declaration of the human as an agent of geological stratification both re-inscribes and challenges the temporal self-image of western modernity as an anthropocentric narrative of progress and ontological supremacy. Establishing a dialogue between historiography and the environmental humanities, this article embeds the Anthropocene hypothesis in recent scholarship on the pluralization of modern temporalities and suggests opportunities to revisit and decenter the specific hegemonic preconceptions and implications of considering modernity and the Anthropocene as temporal regimes with universalist, yet contingent claims on divergent conceptions of being-intime. Contextualized with references to the emergence of historicism in the late 19th century and decolonial critiques that help frame the articulation of western modernity as a practice of temporalized hegemony, this article provides a stepping-stone and introduction to what it might mean to revisit and pluralize modern times against the backdrop of the Anthropocene.