a peer reviewed international transdisciplinary biannual research journal Vol. 7 Issue 1, January 2020 Singularities International Conference on Time 2020, Special Volume in Collaboration with the Conference Organizer Department of English DGMMES MAMPAD COLLEGE (AUTONOMOUS) Mampad, Malappuram Dt., Kerala Chief Editor P. K. Babu., Ph. D Principal, DGMMES Mampad College Members: Dr. K. K. Kunhammad Asst. Professor, Dept. of Studies in English, Kannur University Mammad. N Asst. Professor, Dept of English, Govt. College, Malappuram. Dr. Priya. K. Nair Asst. Professor, Dept. of English, St. Teresa's College, Eranakulam. Aswathi. M. P. Asst. Professor, Dept of English, KAHM Unity Women's College, Manjeri. Shahina Mol. A. K. Asst. Professor and Head Department of English, KAHM Unity Women’s College, Manjeri Dr. Ashley N. P. Asst. Professor St. Stephan's College, Delhi. Advisory Editors : Dr. M. V. Narayanan Fellow at Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla Dr. Nivedita Menon Professor, Centre for Comparative Politics & Political Theory School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University Editor's Note Time haunts. It is, they say, is the fourth dimension of Universe. The zeitgeist of human existence, the denominator of the incidence and categories of being, it interacts with the relative aspects of space and supply thoughts on present, history and prospect. Engaged in the discourses of ephemeral and eternal, static and dynamic and immediate and distant, time weaves the textile of the countable and immeasurable alike. Domains and disciplines like physics, mathematics, anthropology, astronomy, history, politics, religion etc. are intertwined with time references to tackle with the epistemological concerns of authenticity, perspective, beliefs and opinions. The fundamental principles of existence find philosophical and semantic interpretations of time which sometimes pose problematic questions due to the peculiarities of truth(s) proliferated through the discourses on time. Manifested through language and numerals, verbalized through material and metaphysical, the ever pervasive nature of time unravels its immense magnitude for explorations. This made time a vital subject matter for literature and life narratives. Not only does it sustain the possible realms of imaginary, the factual perspective on life is also reinterpreted by means of the connotations that time offers. Ranging from Plato to Foucault, Darwin to Newton, the theorists questioned the coherent and independent nature of time. Time invents reality; it alters, demolishes and rebuilds scenarios. Its stride across humanity, body, power, land, science, centuries and cultures affirms the indispensability of discussions on the confluence and the signatures of time. The Singularities International Conference, anchoring on the theme of Time, jointly organized by Singularities, a Transdisciplinary Biannual Research Journal and Department of English, DGMMES Mampad College provides a platform for dynamic deliberations on the concepts associated with Time in an interdisciplinary approach. This is an extension of the academic culture that the journal set, to make the scholars intellectually engaged, not simply through publishing papers, but by means of the dialogues and interactions the Singularities Conferences initiate. By presenting Singularities Time Conference Issue, we offer a reading platform that voices variant nuances of Time. P. K. Babu., Ph. D Chief Editor Contents 1. Chiangmong Khiamniungan, M.Phil 1-16 Ethics and the Present: Marcus Aurelius’ Stoic Ethics 2. Shobana P Mathews, Ph.D. 17-23 Vishal Varier Advaith J Pink Floyd's Time: an aural Narrative that Explores Aspects of Time through Lyrics and the Disruption of Music Memory 3. Sapphire Mahmood Ahmed 24-29 Theorizing Magic: an Analysis of the Nature of Time-travel in Select Harry Potter Novels 4. Rosmy Varghese 30-33 Significance and the Politics of the Study of Contemporary Human Geography 5. Aleena Joseph 34-40 Jithin Joseph Cultural Study of Mannan Tribe, through Idioms, Proverbs and Sayings 6. P. Sanyasi Rao, Ph.D. 41-46 Recapturing of the Times of Emergency in Nayantara Sahgal’s Rich Like Us 7. Amal Sony 47-53 Gayathri S. S Change in the Perception of Time: An Approach through Innisian Space Biased Media 8. Gaya Hadiya A 54-59 Understanding the Different Aspects of Temporalities Involved in the Production of Historical Knowledge 9. Krishna Menon 60-63 Deconstructing the Space-time Continuum in Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life of Bees 10. Vaishali Singh 64-69 Temporality of Justice : Failure of Law in Cases of Contesting Temporalities 11. Neeraja Sasikumar 70-77 Roots and Rituals in K N Panikkar's Plays: Dynamics of Performance in Cultural Intersections 12. Athira R S 78-83 Time is a Flat Circle: Revisiting Gender, Sexuality and Diversity in “Two-Spirits” 13. Sreelekshmi J 84-92 Tiresias(es) of the Indian Psyche: A Close Analysis of the Chronogender Characters in The Mahabharata 14. Fabitha Ibrahim 93-96 Traumatic Experience of Yazidi Community in Nadia Murad's The Last Girl: My Story of captivity, My fight against the Islamic State 15. Jobinraj R.V 97-100 Dhinil Sen James Joyce's Ulysses: A Temporal and Spatial Narrative in Modernist Literature 16. Vidhya Viswanathan 101-105 Time Bound: Gendered Role Plays in Manju Kapur's Difficult Daughters and Home Chiangmong Khiamniungan, M.Phil Ethics and the Present: Marcus Aurelius’ Stoic Ethics Abstract The present is the proper domain of ethics, for the past no longer is and the future is yet to be; because “the present is the only point at which [men] are truly themselves and free”. Pierre Hadot describes thus Marcus Aurelius' Stoic ethics and his attitude towards the present. I hope to perform two things with this paper. First, explain Hadot's reading of Marcus Aurelius' unique attitude to and conception of the present which is inextricably integrated with the fundamental Stoic dogma that good and evil only pertains to moral good and evil: “moral” understood as a description that which is up to us. Second, examine ways in which this attitude might inform attitudes to the contemporary, our present. Of course, for Marcus Aurelius, the present meant the current instant, his now. Does the ethics of his private instant have resources with which we could better think about the politics of our common present? For the first, I will rely on Hadot's magisterial work on Marcus Aurelius' Meditations titled The Inner Citadel: The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. I will then argue positively for the second by appealing to the Stoic attitude of vigilance (prosoche) towards the present instant complemented by the injunction to always act in the service of the human community. Key Words: Present, Marcus Aurelius, Pierre Hadot, Stoicism, ethos What is The Present? The following are enough for you:- - your present value-judgment [hupolçpsis], as long as it is objective [katalçptikç]; - your present action [praxis], as long as it is accomplished in the service of the human community [koinônikç]; - your present inner disposition [diathesis], as long as it finds it's joy in every conjunction of events brought about by the external cause [ektos aitias]. (Meditations, 9.6)1 At this moment, I have what common Nature [koinç phusis] wants me to have in this moment, and I'm doing what my own nature [emç phusis] wants me to be doing at this moment. (5.25) What evil can there be for you, if you do that which, in this present moment [nun], is appropriate to your nature [tç phusei]; and if you accept that which, in this present moment, comes at the moment which is opportune for the Nature of the All [olôn phusei]. (11.13) Chiangmong Khiamniungan, M.Phil is a Research Scholar, Department of Political Science, University of Hyderabad, Room No. 320, MH–K, South Campus, University of Hyderabad , Gachibowli – 500046 1Subsequent quotations from Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations will be cited intext. Also, all translations, unless indicated otherwise, are those by Pierre Hadot. Hadot the philologist (and translator) cannot be separated from Hadot the philosopher. 7 Singularities Vol.7 Issue 1 January 2020 ISSN 2348 – 3369 I shall come to the jargon, indicated in square brackets, presently. But to start with, let's note Marcus Aurelius' (hereafter, Marcus) omnipresent concern with the “present” and ask what this “present” is. Without going into the complex notion of time developed by the Stoics2, we can say that the Stoics thought of the present in two ways. [Chrysippus] states very clearly that, in general, time is never present, for since that which is continuous is divisible ad infinitum, then in accordance with this division all of time is also divisible ad infinitum. Therefore, there is no present time, in the proper sense of the term; rather, it is spoken of in an extended sense (kata platos)3. Taking this report of the view of Chrysippus of Soli, the third head of the Stoa, Pierre Hadot discerns two senses of the “present” as the Stoics understood it: first, as a limit between the past and the future; and second, in relation with human consciousness which perceives and thinks and acts. The former is a mathematical and infinitesimal instant, a pure abstraction. In this sense, “time is never present”; “there is no present time”. But the latter has a certain thickness and duration corresponding to the lived present. Here, we can think of the present in “in an extended sense”4. We can understand this “extendedness” of the present by thinking of it as “as containing a part of itself already past and another one still to come”5. What's important for us is that it is this durative or “extended” present that Marcus is talking of. It is in this present whose durative thickness cannot be specified that we think, desire, and act; in other words, it is in this present that we get on with our lives. “Clearly, it is within this present that I situate the representation which I am having at this moment, the desire I am feeling at this moment, and the action which, at this moment, I am performing”6.