Marking Time—Marking Space

Abstract

At a time when we witness the transition from one millennium to another, it is inevitable that our awareness of things temporal should be heightened. Here I respond to this special awareness by exploring some of the ways in which we arbitrarily interrupt the continuum of both time and space through processes such as periodization and the naming of locations, either in connection with events that happen in time and space or, in the case of spatial divisions, through communicating the notions of here, there, and somewhere else with the aid of individualizing names. Marking time and space are revealed as acts essential for human survival.