Academic Times Contesting the Chronopolitics of Research

This open access book explores the hidden politics of time—the chronopolitics—that profoundly shapes the contours of academic life and knowledge production in contemporary universities. Moving beyond familiar critiques of academic acceleration, Ulrike Felt explores the diversity of time generators and the resultant complex, multilayered timescapes that govern scholarly work and life. The book examines the tensions inherent in models of linear careers and in simultaneous experiences of speed and waiting, and asks questions about the ownership of time. In doing so, it scrutinizes relations between time and quality, and points to the impact of time on how and what we can know, revealing how these temporal regimes create deep asynchronicities and fragmentations and perpetuate injustices and exclusions. Arguing for a more mindful approach to research, Felt advocates for rethinking academia through the lens of time, emphasizing the need for temporal care work in order to achieve sustainable and responsible change. Aimed at researchers, academic leaders, and policymakers, the book offers a compelling vision for a more responsive, long-term, and equitable academic future—one that challenges neoliberal models that prioritise speed, competitiveness, and efficiency.

1. Introduction.- PART 1 – CONCEPTUALISING AND MAKING TIME IN ACADEMIC RESEARCH.- 2. The temporal fabric of academic lives.- 3. Technologies of making time—on the proliferation of “time generators”.- 4. Knowing and living in research – On temporal sense-making.- PART 2 — EXPERIENCING TIME IN ACADEMIC RESEARCH.- 5. Academic lives in the fast lane.- 6. Academic lifelines—Trajectorising messy lives.- 7. Academic waiting games.- 8. Owning time.- 9. Time, quality, and accountability.- 10. Epistemic Temporalities.-PART 3 – DISCUSSION AND CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS.- 11. Discussion: Knowing times.- 12. Concluding reflections: Chronopolitics of academic research.

Ulrike Felt is professor and head of the Department of Science and Technology Studies (STS) as well as of the interfaculty research platform ‘Responsible research and innovation in academic practice’ at University of Vienna, Austria.