Backwards Time: The Rhetoric of Reverse

Abstract

Is time reversible? The debate is ongoing, and has at times been misunderstood.

This thesis examines the history and philosophy of backwards time, particularly from the mid-nineteenth century onwards, along with its representations and uses in fictional narratives and the argumentation of scientific papers.

Focussing on Lewis Carroll, Vladimir Nabokov and Martin Amis - literary figures preoccupied with time who are interrelated in revealing ways - the thesis draws out the satirical, comic and serious effects of backwards-moving temporal processes. In doing so, it suggests that our conception of time depends in large part upon the modes of reasoning we deploy to make sense of it.

The discussion of the idea of backwards time in this thesis includes a wide range of phenomena (see keywords) to reflect on the broader cultural-historical aspects of ideas about time and to suggest some of the ways in which they impinge on e.g. the moral and political spheres.