ABSTRACT
This chapter sets aside the habitual Euramerican view that modernity is to be prescribed by Euramerican historical experience and its temporal constructions. It discusses different models of modernity from three Asian cultures in terms of temporal concepts drawn from the writings of C. K. Raju: epistemically broken time; mundane time; and super-cyclic time, discussing these through the works of Khrua In Kong (Siam), Sudjojono (Indonesia), and Zhang Peili (China).
Fabian’s four conceptual categories of time are developed to critique the notion of not being in, or not being able to understand, the time of the cultural other. By extension, Euramerican imperviousness to other cultures” conceptualization of time writes “anachrony” as a subterfuge for “alien.”
Cultural contact is not unidirectional and under unequal counterprojection of cultural frames the Asian notions of time acquire more significance in order to compensate for Euramerican misprision. The chapter concludes that the structure of periodization can be similar across cultures, but allows for very different historical durations.
