1 Biennial Conference of the Finnish Anthropological Society 28.–30.8.2019 Time is a classic topic in anthropology: it has been viewed as a natural, linguistic, religious, economic and generational phenomenon, among other things. But it is hard to recall when time would have been as widely researched as it is right now. The theme of the 2019 conference of the Finnish Anthropological Society was chosen largely to find out “why time now?” Is it because we have become increasingly aware of the plurality of temporal regimes in our lives, for example, or because of our increased sensitivity to these due to the increased movement of ever more people? And is this why the plural “temporalities” is now often favoured over the singular “time”? Ultimately, it must be anthropology’s versatility that makes it particularly well suited for grasping and narrating time as a combination of politics, space, materiality, language, scale, valuation, prediction, and growth – again just to name but a few themes. But what has anthropology learnt from the study of time? Has the current “temporal turn” gone far enough for us to take stock of its accomplishments? The 2019 Finnish Anthropological Society Conference “On Time” investigates these themes in panels and films. The conference is organised in co- operation with the discipline of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Helsinki and the Finnish Literature Society. The keynote speaker of the conference is Ghassan Hage, and the 2019 Edvard Westermarck memorial lecture will be given by Laura Bear on the eve of the conference (August 28). Panel 1. Academic Time Now Panel conveners: EEVA BERGLUND Aalto University eeva.berglund@aalto.fi MATTI ERÄSAARI University of Helsinki matti.erasaari@helsinki.fi Is academic time out of joint? There is a sense that many of the delights of research are ever harder to enjoy because institutional and economic factors have squeezed out a key condition of rewarding academic labour, time. This panel invites contributions that explore current configurations of time and academic work. Subtle transformations in temporal and labour regimes have attracted scholarly attention recently. How do the rhythms of audit culture connect with everyday academic lives? There have also been calls to “slow down” university work. In Another Science is Possible: A manifesto for slow science (2018), Isabel Stengers has even written of the need to slow down to avoid impending barbarism. She cites Alfred North Whitehead, for whom “the task of the University is the creation of the future, so far as rational thought, and civilised modes of appreciation, can affect the issue”. Indeed, future-talk of various kinds has entered intellectual discourse in the last few years, in part to do with threats to Earth systems – the Anthropocene. As universities play contradictory roles vis-à-vis such developments, scholarly, socio-economic and bodily desires increasingly clash – or do they? Academics have personal experience of the issues. We can also think creatively about the less obvious forces shaping the connections between ways of reckoning time, doing research and hegemonic aspirations, for example for efficiency or economic growth. We may also challenge Stengers’ view. Contributions are invited from anthropologists and others, that reflect on their own practice, on the role of institutions or on student experiences, or any other aspect of the panel topic. Student Experiences of Academic Time: Constructing Careers on Unknowable Foundations in Uncertain Times CHIMA MICHAEL ANYADIKE-DANES University of Sheffield chima.anyadike.danes@googlemail.com The British academy’s entanglement with the British economy has long been complicated. Episodes, like the creation of University College London, the nation’s first civic university, in the early 19th century in response to Oxbridge’s failure to provide a relevant university education attest to this (Whyte 2015). The Thatcher government’s 1987 white paper ‘Higher Education: Meeting the Challenge’ which argued “Meeting the needs of the economy is not the sole purpose of higher education . . . But this aim . . . must be vigorously pursued” established the current paradigm (British Government 1987). Universities were to be the midwives, wet-nurses, and governesses of the nation’s future. They were to help birth new innovations, nurture entrepreneurs, and train knowledge workers. Beginning with New Labour, this ‘vigorous pursuit’ was further encouraged by successive governments each of whom represented university attendance as an increasingly integral feature of British life. They set recruitment targets and formulated ever more complex instruments for “authoritarian governmentality” (Shore and Wright 1999). My focus in this context are students from under-