About Time

Mark Currie brings together theoretical and philosophical ideas about time in his analysis of anticipation and other forms of projection into the future. In the work of such writers as Ali Smith, Ian McEwan, Martin Amis, and Graham Swift, he considers "prolepsis" or "flashforward," in which a character experiences the present as the object of a future memory, and outlines a set of questions about tense and temporal reference that redefines the function of stories in contemporary culture. He also revisits traditional questions about the difference between literature and philosophy in relation to knowledge of time.