1 Syllabus Master History of Society Historical Culture and Historical Consciousness (Rotterdam FHKW 2008) The twofold character of time1

According to Jan Assmann the cultural construction of time is the most fundamental and all encompassing of all constructions of meaning in history.2 He also emphasizes the heterogeneity of every culture: cultures encompass within themselves different concepts of time, such as "sites of memory " and "sites of renewal", which play a specific role in a given culture's structures of meaning. The different institutionalized forms of these time-sites often produce tensions between them.3 Yet there are other, more objectifying approaches of time. In fact we distinguish two concepts of time which constitute an aporia, an insoluble problem: objective (measurable) time and subjective (experienced) time. Experiencing time supposes a human subject who articulates his or her perception of change: "time flies by " or "it seems to last an eternity". Hence we speak of subjective time. Measure time supposes sundials, hourglasses and clocks, instruments by which we make changes visible, measurable and exchangeable. Hence we speak of objective time. In the first volume of Time and Narrative Paul Ricoeur proposes a way to deal with the aporia of this twofold character of time. He combines Augustine's reflections on time with the theory of plot from Aristotle's book Poetics. With this narrative approach he hopes to clarify th