This presentation was presented in Class presentation in Semester 3 of M.A. (English) at Department of English, M.K. Bhavnagar University. This presentation deals with the science of speed and its counter movement slow movement culture.

1. Prepare by: Jheel Barad
Paul Virilio’ s
'Dromology'- The
Study of Speed
and The Slow
Movement
Department of English, M.K.B.U.
Paper no.: 205 (A) Cultural Studies

2. I am Jheel Barad
Roll No.: 12
Enrollment no.: 4069206420210003
Sem.: 3 (M.A.)
Paper no.: 205 (A) Paper code: 22410
Paper name: Cultural Studies
Topic: Paul Virilio’ s 'Dromology'- The Study of Speed and
The Slow Movement
Submitted to: Smt S.B. Gardi, Department of English,
M.K.B.U
E-mail: jheelbarad@gmail.com

3. INTRODUCTION
It 's A midday!
What’s an amount of qualitative work you have done
today?
Do you think you are having a qualitative day!
Number of work you have done.
Competition- Quality of the work matters not the quantity
sports- if there is a tough fight betweens opponents, quality of play metters the result
becomes secondary.
But today we are racing against time. its the result of Technoculture.
Advancement of technology, increased the speed of working.
Humans need to work with the increased speed or else they will be thrown out of the world.

4. Paul Virilio’s Dromology
Paul Virilio was a French cultural theorist , urbanist, architect and aesthetic philosopher.
He is best known for his writings about technology as it has developed in relation to
speed and power, (Chautard et al. )
Dromos is an Ancient Greek noun for race or racetrack, which Virilio applied the activity
of racing (Virilio)
Dromology- Logic of speed
Reading of late 20th century Cyberculture; advent of more technology and media, our
lives are under constant surveillance
Socio- political institutions need of speed rather than commerce.
new problems resulting from the fact that the development of industrial capitalism has
reached the stage in which wealth and power in society have been interconnected with
ever increasing speed.(Hauer)

5. New information and communication technology
weapons for a Pure war.
Speed and technology replaces democratic
participation. Farm Bills 2021, CAA 2019
Local time to Global time- Globalitarianism
( Totalitarianism of totalitarianism)
Speed and Technology replacing democratic
participation. (Nayar)
Speeding up is a result of technology
Virilio’s theory shows the far-reaching extent to which the speed conquered all and
everything over the centuries: transportation and production, peace and war, men and
women, urban and rural areas, work and leisure time, arts and commerce. (Virilio)

6. Virilio emphasizes that speed is not a phenomenon, but a relation between phenomena.
The difference between contemporary society and societies of the past consists in the
fact that earlier speed used to be mainly connected with transport, now it concerns relations
within information. (Hauer)
Expansion of virtual real results into loss of trust in “eye reality” (Hauer)
Baudrillard gives us idea of Simulacrum. Virtual games, Horror House, 9D cinemas etc
Scarcity of food speeding up with greenhouse effect and
fertilizers, quality reduced.
technoculture is giving us speed but with risk of our own.
growth of risk society as talked by Ulrich Beck in his work
Technoculture and Risk.

7. Counter Culture- Slow movement Culture
"It is a cultural revolution against the notion that faster is always better. The Slow
philosophy is not about doing everything at a snail’s pace. It's about seeking to do
everything at the right speed. Savoring the hours and minutes rather than just counting
them. Doing everything as well as possible, instead of as fast as possible. It’s about
quality over quantity in everything from work to food to parenting." (Honore)
Don’t live life as if you’re afraid of being late to your own funeral”
-Geir Berthelsen, Founder The world Institute of slowness
Carlo Petrini, an Italian journalist, launched the Slow Food movement in 1986 as a protest
against all that is mass-produced and unethical in food. (“Our history - About us”)
Time poverty a modern malaise. (Faber)

8. Slow education; Slow parenting; Slow TV; Slow lifestyle; Slow travelling. (Roy)
Claxton is of the opinion that “we have developed an inner psychology of speed, of
saving time and maximizing efficiency, which is getting stronger by the day.” (Claxton)
In 1982, Larry Dossey, an American physician, coined the term “time-sickness” to
explain the obsessive concern we have about time, which we think is always fleeting;
there isn’t enough of it. (Dossey)
“how we try to make things better, what do we do? we do? No, we speed them up, don't
we?(Honore)
Why it's hard to slow down?
speed is fun; keep our head busy with distractions; cultural taboo of being called ‘lazy’.
(Honore)

9. Desire for connectedness, quality of food and living, healthy body healthy mind.
Slow movement in India!
Ayurveda- It talks about balance and stability of the body and the mind.(Lad)

10. CONCLUSION
Slow life pulls in the opposite direction to the dominant Western principle of market expansion
(faster, cheaper, more), and it remains to be seen whether the two can co-exist.
Medicine for increasingly atomised urban living. But many of its principles – patience, quality
over quantity, ethical responsibility – are just common sense, perhaps forgotten in the
breakneck passage of life. But none of this is new information.
Have we forgotten the tortoise and the hare?
This idea is more in favour of elite society.
Developed countries having economical, social and cultural stability can adapt this ideas.
Third world countries need to grow, speedup. before slowing down financial security is
necessary.

11. Works Cited
Baudrillard, Jean. Simulacra and simulation. Translated by Sheila Faria Glaser, University of Michigan Press, 1994.
Beck, Ulrich. Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity. Translated by Mark Ritter, SAGE Publications, 1992.
Berthelsen, Geir. The World Institute Of Slowness, https://www.theworldinstituteofslowness.com/. Accessed 7 October 2022.
Chautard, Sophie, et al. 100 hommes qui ont fait la France du XXe siècle: Politique, économie, culture. Jeunes éditions -
Studyrama, 2003. Accessed 7 October 2022.
Claxton, Guy. Hare brain, tortoise mind : how intelligence increases when you think less. Ecco, 2000.
Dossey, Larry. Space, Time & Medicine. Shambhala, 1982.
Faber, Tom. “Going Slow: The Slow Movement.” Londnr, 2017, https://londnr.com/going-slow-the-slow-movement/. Accessed 7
October 2022.
Hauer, Thomas. “Speed and Slowness: Dromology and Technical Images.” semanticschoar.org, 10 November 2014,
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/f7a2/39672d36acc2ace27669b27840d3fd456948.pdf?_ga=2.227475485.1420010135.1
665093905-1127459787.1664121136. Accessed 7 10 2022.

12. Honore, Carl. “Carl Honore: In praise of slowness.” YouTube, 23 March 2007, https://youtu.be/UhXiHJ8vfuk. Accessed 7
October 2022.
Honore, Carl. In Praise of Slowness: Challenging the Cult of Speed. HarperCollins, 2005.
Lad, Vasant. “What is Ayurveda? Introduction & Guide.” The Ayurvedic Institute, https://www.ayurveda.com/ayurveda-a-
brief-introduction-and-guide/#. Accessed 7 October 2022.
Nayar, Pramod K. An Introduction to Cultural Studies. Viva Books, 2016.
“Our history - About us.” Slow Food, https://www.slowfood.com/about-us/our-history/. Accessed 7 October 2022.
Roy, Adhik. “By slowing down, we will be happier.” The Statesman, 17 March 2018,
https://www.thestatesman.com/opinion/slowing-will-happier-1502602995.html. Accessed 7 October 2022.
Virilio, Paul. The Aesthetics of Disappearance, New Edition. Translated by Philip Beitchman, MIT Press, 2009.
Virilio, Paul. Speed and Politics, New Edition. MIT Press, 2006.