부산대학교 도서관

Chronos is a traditionally marginalized term in rhetorical studies. Historically paired with kairos, chronos is commonly taken to refer to chronology, empty, homogenous, and external time. I argue for a reconsideration and redefinition of chronos that pairs the term with a critical materialist theory of time as change, immanent temporalities. Chronos understood as an entanglement of immanent temporalities informs chronistic criticism. Chronistic criticism is a conceptual criticism investigating the rhetorical arrangement, or synchronization, of multiple processes of change. Reconsidering chronos makes room for investigating time-related texts, like ‘Iraq's first national calendar. This calendar emerged after the establishment of the ‘Iraqi state under the League of Nation's Mandate System where British authorities were charged with building a modern nation state from territories of the former Ottoman Empire. I demonstrate chronistic criticism examining Gertrude Bell's digital archive for observations about successes, failures, and competitors with the national calendar. A vitalized chronos stands to make substantive contributions to the study of numerous rhetorical concepts. Specifically, for this investigation, chronos offers new insights into political myths, calendars, nation building, and the potential influences of nonhuman immanent temporalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]