Time Interrupted

The belief that societies are continually advancing through time has been a near constant imaginary of almost all liberal, socialist, and post-colonial regimes. It continues to inform many social movements to this day. Here you will find theoretical documents that disrupt this narrative of progress or offer alternate chronicles of ruptured, interrupted, or discontinuous time.

Simulations and Simulacra by Jean Baudrillard (1981)

Jean Baudrillard introduces the idea that reality and a constructed form of reality are unable to be distinguished from each other. He explains the ways images, culture and media work to define simulacra.

Radical America: The Guardian: From Old to New Left (1968)

Started by Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) in the late 1960s, Radical America was a magazine publication which focused on the many goals and updates of the specifically campus-based New Left. “The Guardian: From…

Radical Feminism as Social Arrest: A Kinetic Analysis – Audrey Love (2016)

Thesis examining U.S. radical feminism as the arrest of patriarchal order, gaze, and time

Theses on the Philosophy of History – Walter Benjamin (1940)

Lets Spit on Hegel – Carla Lonzi (1970)

Carla Lonzi, leading member of the Italian feminist collective Rivolta Femminile, 1970 pamphlet against patriarchal thought, history, and time. In this text Lonzi attacks Hegel (and Marx’s) notions of antagonism, progres…

Decree on the Republican Calendar (1793)

In October 1793, the French National Convention ordered the use of the Republican Calendar to replace the Gregorian Calendar. The Republican Calendar was made to depict agrarian imagery and dismantle the lies of the thro…

Ten-Point Program (1966)

Published in 1966 by the Black Panther Party, written by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, “The Ten Point Program” was a statement of their goals and organization. Intended to be ten points which would guide the everyday…

Calendrier Républicain (1794)

This etching, created by Philibert-Louis Debucourt in 1794, is a visual representation of the Republican Calendar. It is titled Calendrier Républicain. The Republican Calendar officially replaced the Gregorian Calendar…

The Coming Insurrection – The Invisible Committee (2009)

Now classic text by French collective – The Invisible Committee describing the present impasse through seven circles of hell and the way out through the insurrectionary commune

The Kinetics of Our Discontent – Mehmet Dosemeci (2020)

Why do we think of social struggles as movements? Has struggle been thought/practiced otherwise? Not as movement but as disruption, arrest, stasis? If so, what are struggles trying to stop?

The Calendar – Report (1793)

This report, submitted in 1793, describes the arguments for replacing the Gregorian Calendar with the Republican Calendar. The change of the conceptualization of time was a disruption of society and everyday life.