Time is suddenly everywhere in the eyes of humanities scholars and social scientists: in the webs of life that have evolved to maintain life on this planet; in the everyday lives of cab drivers, scientists and calendar software developers; in the stories we turn to in order to understand the present; in histories of growth and expansion; in the timelines, plans, and deadlines defining fundamental stakes of politics.

There is growing interest in historiographies of time, ethnographies of time, media theories, social theories and aesthetics of time. But ultimately, why does it matter that time is multiple and ubiquitous?

The Lifetimes project’s concluding conference is dedicated to the issues that arise when we no longer live the same histories, endure the same experiences, follow the same beat, or even conceptualize the times we live in with the same vocabulary, the same timekeeping technologies, or from within the same academic disciplines.