The scientific notion of time, which developed gradually since Newton’s discoveries, construes time as uniform, constant, and unidirectional and has proven remarkably successful. It is the key to ocean navigation, rail transportation, and electronic technologies. Furthermore, it seems to have solved a fundamental human problem. It is possible to set appointments months even years in advance. And yet, at same time, this conception poses a monumental threat human consciousness for it clashes with the most basic tenet of human self-perception, namely its assumption of freedom.

This exploration is after the ongoing struggle between the modern-scientific notion of time and other competing ideas on time rooted in religious, artistic, scientific, and social constructs. The scientific notion of time developed gradually since Newton’s discoveries and construes time as uniform, constant, and unidirectional. This notion has proven remarkably successful. Synchronizing time and space opened the path to ocean navigation, rail transportation, and electronic technologies. And yet, this mechanized and unidirectional synchronized conception contradicts basic tenets of human self-perception, including its assumption of freedom.

To explore this struggle, a workshop is planned for July 17-18, 2025, to look at the debates about synchronized time from a historical and conceptual perspective. How did modern philosophy, literature and art, and the natural and social sciences react to the synchronized concept of time? How did religious ideologies and texts contribute to the modern debate about time? What part did this debate play in modern and postmodern discussions about, for example, colonialism and gender? Simultaneously, the workshop will offer a platform for debating time in the present. What, for example, is the time of postwar democracies, and what are its alternatives? And, what is the time of contemporary media?