The politics of time, the politics of history. Who are my contemporaries?

Abstract

The article focuses on the notion of the ‘politics of time’ from a performative point of view. I aim to show that periodization is a way we act upon time. The first part of the article argues that, during the nineteenth century, ‘contemporaneity’ began to be understood as ‘sharing the present’. I focus mainly on the writings of Taine and Tocqueville. I then show the normative presupposition underlying the ‘contemporaneity/non-contemporaneity issue’. Finally, I explore its consequences for a Western conception of the present.