Can we teach undergraduates the history of time?

This essay examines the author’s experience since 2018 in developing and teaching a third-year undergraduate course on history of time at Singapore university, for students specializing East Southeast Asian technology. History courses are traditionally taught chronological format, with clear periodization, nearly exclusive focus written audiovisual “texts.” The author has found that such an approach is less effective time, subject suggests no obvious periodization or linear narrative, which many his lack precise vocabulary. To solve these challenges, borrowed autoethnographic exercises developed by scholars other disciplines assigned unconventional tasks as building water clocks curating capsules. While proven popular, it also invited questions about what global looks like. Although industrial technological accessible to students, much recent work temporality presumes familiarity European North American social political issues outside those regions may lack.