This volume is the first of its kind in focusing on the temporalities of museum work. Wayne Modest, Peter Pels and contributors analyze concerns around the function of museums in relation to time, inquiring whether museums can ever be successful in arresting time or setting themselves outside of time.

Wayne Modest is the Head of the Research Center for Material Culture, the Netherlands. He is also a Professor at the Faculty of Humanities at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the Netherlands.Peter Pels is Professor of Anthropology and Sociology of Africa at Leiden University, the Netherlands.

1. Introduction: Time for the Museum Wayne Modest, Free University Amsterdam, Holland and Peter Pels, Leiden University, The Netherlands Part One: Time, Alterity and Museums 2. Time Isn't What It Used To Be, or: An Anthropology of Time for Museums Peter Pels, Leiden University, The Netherlands 3. Time and the Object: An Interview with Johannes Fabian Wayne Modest, National Museum of World Cultures; Free University Amsterdam, Holland Part Two: European Time and the Museum 4. The Crisis of Eternity: Canons and Contemporaneity Cecilia Hurley, Ecole du Louvre, Paris; University of Neuchâtel, France 5. "Where do we come from? Who are we? Where are we going to?" Some Questions about Framing Time in Museums Benoît de L'Estoile, Centre Maurice Halbwachs, CNRS; Ecole normale supérieure, Paris, France Part Three: Heterochronia, or: Entangling with Other-than-European Temporalities 6. Time in Native American Modernist Art Ruth Phillips, Carleton University, USA 7. Curating Indigenous Art in Mexico: possibilities and challenges Genner Llanes-Ortiz, Universiteit Leiden, The Netherlands 8.The Quintessence of Dust: Carnival Temporality and the Ethnographic Museum Jenny Walklate, University of Leicester, UK9. Museums and the Question of Colonial Time in the CaribbeanWayne Modest, National Museum of World Cultures; VU University Amsterdam, Holland Part Four: Sensing Time, or: Multiple Temporalities of the Museum 10. Renovation, Moving Images, and the Question of Velocity Mary Bouquet, University College Utrecht, Denmark 11. Building Time: the Architecture of Museums and Exhibitions Corinne Kratz, Emory University, USA Part Five: Materiality, Permanence and the Future 12. From dust to dust: the nuances of material impermanence Renata Peters, University College London, UK 13. Stockpiling the Past for an Unpredictable Future: Techniques of Preparedness in Labs and Museums Frédéric Keck, Musée du Quai Branly, France 14. In the Absence of the Material: History, Time and Telos at POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, POLIN Museum, Warsaw; New York University, USA 15. Postscript: the Future of the Ethnographic Museum Wayne Modest, Free University Amsterdam, Holland and Peter Pels, Leiden University, The Netherlands Bibliography Index