Oddly Modern Times: Alternate-Temporality Clocks and Other Peculiar Modes of Access in Anglophone and German Literary Modernism

Simple item page
dc.contributor.advisorRoof, Judithen_US
dc.creatorBattaglia, Andrew Johnen_US
dc.date.accessioned2022-09-26T15:16:07Zen_US
dc.date.created2022-05en_US
dc.date.issued2022-04-20en_US
dc.date.submittedMay 2022en_US
dc.date.updated2022-09-26T15:16:07Zen_US
dc.description.abstractIn 1882, Western nations convened in Washington D.C. to debate and ultimately ratify a novel proposal: world standard time. Unlike the reigning mode of temporal accountancy in which each nation calculated and enforced its own temporal schema, the Canadian Sandford Fleming’s totalizing space-time grid sought to replace the various local times with twenty-four time zones all set against a common zero meridian, located at the Greenwich Observatory in London. In place of local solar time—which determines time by the sun’s apparent motion at a specific location—the West (and ultimately the world) elected to tell time by conventional reckoning, decoupling precision clocks and other time devices from solar time’s natural relationship to planetary motion. Reading the substitution of convention for naturality to be exemplary of literary modernism, this dissertation traces how late-nineteenth-century and twentieth-century literature stages the affordances and limitations of technical intervention in putatively natural relationships. Looking at the human face as the site of expressions, the railway timetable as a proxy for foreign locales, and the deep future as terra incognita for human development, this dissertation traces how various prosthetic armatures fail to satisfy the presumptive reliability of natural relationships just as the vast technical network that subtends world standard time fails to satisfy fully the reliable if limited role that local solar time once played.en_US
dc.embargo.lift2024-05-01en_US
dc.embargo.terms2024-05-01en_US
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen_US
dc.identifier.citationBattaglia, Andrew John. "Oddly Modern Times: Alternate-Temporality Clocks and Other Peculiar Modes of Access in Anglophone and German Literary Modernism." (2022) Diss., Rice University. <a href="https://hdl.handle.net/1911/113354">https://hdl.handle.net/1911/113354</a>.en_US
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1911/113354en_US
dc.language.isoengen_US
dc.rightsCopyright is held by the author, unless otherwise indicated. Permission to reuse, publish, or reproduce the work beyond the bounds of fair use or other exemptions to copyright law must be obtained from the copyright holder.en_US
dc.subjectliterary modernismen_US
dc.subjectmodernist aestheticsen_US
dc.subjectMannoni, Octaveen_US
dc.subjectStoker, Bramen_US
dc.subjectConrad, Josephen_US
dc.subjectLarsen, Nellaen_US
dc.subjectFisher, Rudolphen_US
dc.subjectclocksen_US
dc.subjecthistory of technologyen_US
dc.subjectphysiognomyen_US
dc.subjecttelepathyen_US
dc.subjectThomas Mannen_US
dc.subjectKenneth Fearingen_US
dc.subjectnovelen_US
dc.subjectmodernityen_US
dc.subjectVita Sackville-Westen_US
dc.subjectWhaton, Edithen_US
dc.subjectWest, Nathanaelen_US
dc.subjecttime capsulesen_US
dc.subjecttime travelen_US
dc.subjecttemporalityen_US
dc.titleOddly Modern Times: Alternate-Temporality Clocks and Other Peculiar Modes of Access in Anglophone and German Literary Modernismen_US
dc.typeThesisen_US
dc.type.materialTexten_US
thesis.degree.departmentEnglishen_US
thesis.degree.disciplineHumanitiesen_US
thesis.degree.grantorRice Universityen_US
thesis.degree.levelDoctoralen_US
thesis.degree.nameDoctor of Philosophyen_US
Files
Original bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Thumbnail Image
Name:
BATTAGLIA-DOCUMENT-2022.pdf
Size:
1.48 MB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Download
License bundle
Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
No Thumbnail Available
Name:
PROQUEST_LICENSE.txt
Size:
5.85 KB
Format:
Plain Text
Description:
Download
No Thumbnail Available
Name:
LICENSE.txt
Size:
2.61 KB
Format:
Plain Text
Description:
Download
Collections
Rice University Theses and Dissertations