Perspectives on Time & History
From time management to philosophical and scientific understandings of time, explore your experience of time and your own personal history.
Module details
- Offered to 2nd Years
- Mondays 16.00-18.00
- Planned delivery: On campus (South Kensington) & Online
- Two-term module, worth 5 ECTS
- Available to eligible students as part of I-Explore
- Extra Credit, or Degree Credit where your department allows
How have we, as humans, understood time through the ages and in different religious, cultural and scientific contexts? What can we learn about our own experiences of time? What does this moment of time mean to us and how can we use this moment to gain perspective on our own histories and futures?
This module will allow you to explore different conceptualisations on time and their impact on our curation of human and personal histories, as well as our more pragmatic daily engagement with time. We will consider religious, philosophical, physical and perceptual conceptualisations of time – in each case trying to relate these grand ideas to our own experiences. You will have the opportunity to take the ideas that interest you the most forward into a personal exploration of your own experience of time, captured in a multimedia project.
This module will be delivered with a mixture of on campus sessions and online drop in and review sessions. This will allow us to spend time together and enjoy working in person, but will also give us some flexibility to join sessions remotely as needed. We will therefore be developing specific skills to support both in person and online working. All sessions will be fully interactive and will include individual and team work and lots of interaction with the lecturer. We will make full use of our virtual classroom throughout, which will be our main point of contact and collaboration. See the Change Makers handbook for more information about our virtual classroom on Basecamp.
Please note: The information on this module description is indicative. The module may undergo minor modifications before the start of next academic year.
Information blocks
Learning outcomes
On successful completion of the module you will be able to:
- Describe different conceptualisations of time
- Analyse the relationship between time and history
- Reflect on and document a range of understandings of your own place in history with reference to different scales of time and place
- Critically relate ideas about time and history to your own personal experience
- Demonstrate collaborative and independent working skills
Indicative core content
During the initial part of the module, we will explore different conceptualisations of time - drawing from religious ideas such as cyclical, (wheel of time), linear and directional views of time, and the ancient Greek concepts of chronos and kairos.
We will consider the big philosophical divide between time viewed as a fundamental and structural element of existence, and time as an intellectual and social construct. We will consider drawing from physical and scientific understandings of time to further our own understandings of our experiences of time.
We will relate all these ideas to our own experiences - creating personal histories of our relationships with time at different moments in our lives. We will consider pragmatic approaches to time, such as time management, efficiency and productivity.
We will critically explore history and histories - thinking about how this relates to time. We will be thinking about what it means to be at this moment in your lives - and this will propel us into individual personal explorations of time in our projects. You will be supported to design your own multimedia project to explore your relationship with time in the past, present and future.
Learning and teaching approach
We will explore different concepts of time with workshop sessions, in class activities and collaborative research in teams. Each session will include dedicated journalling time so that you have plenty of opportunity to relate the big ideas to your own experiences. You will be introduced to a range of reflective techniques and prompts to help you explore your own reflective practice and creativity. This will help you prepare for the projects. We will spend some time in class preparing to design and complete our own projects, before having seven weeks of dedicated class time to complete your projects with the support of your class teacher.
Assessment
In addition to your weekly journalling activity, you will be asked to respond to six prompt questions that will be submitted for assessment. You will be able to draw from your existing journal entries and any feedback that you have received on your journal. You will receive feedback on these before you commence your project. This feedback will include commentary on your independent and collaborative working skills. You will then complete a multimedia project to explore your relationship with time. The project will be of your own design, but must demonstrate personal reflection, autobiographical insights and engagement with different perspectives on time and history. You may submit in any media, with an equivalent word length of 1200 words. This will be accompanied by a structured questionnaire submission to elicit the technical details of your project of no more than 800 words in length. Completing the required elements and technical aspects in the questionnaire leaves you free to be as creative as you like in your project submission.
- Practical: Reflective Journal - 6 prompt questions with 100-200 word responses (20%)
- Practical: Project Questionnaire - approximately 800 words (40%)
- Practical: Multimedia Project - self designed project, equivalent to 1200 words (40%)
Mapping the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in this module
We recognise the interrelated nature of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and do not consider individual SDGs in isolation. We adopt a systems-based approach that recognises their cross-cutting nature.
In this module you will have the opportunity to focus how your own and others’ perspectives on time and personal histories impact wellbeing and sustainable living and working.
In particular, we will be reflecting on issues related to SDG 3 (Good Health and Wellbeing), SDG 4 (Quality Education), SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities) and SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production).
In your final project, you will be able to select which SDG you wish to focus on.
Key information
- Requirements: You are expected to attend all classes and undertake approximately 85 hours of independent study in total during the module. Independent study includes reading and preparation for classes, researching and writing coursework assignments and preparing for other assessments.
- This module is designed as an undergraduate Level 5 module. For an explanation of levels, view the Imperial Horizons Level Descriptors page.