Barbara Adam

Barbara E. Adam, , FLSW (born 5 March 1945) is a retired British sociologist and academic. She specialises in social theory particularly in reference to time. From 1988 to her retirement in 2011, she lectured at Cardiff University; she was appointed professor of sociology in 1999. She is the founding editor of the academic journal Time & Society. Her transdisciplinary work is taught across the arts, the humanities and the social sciences. She was awarded two major ESRC Research Fellowships (1994 and 2003) as well as senior Fellowships in Potsdam, Germany and Cagliari, Italy as well as Durham and Bristol, UK. From 1999 to 2000, she held the Max Weber Chair at LMU Munich.

In 1992, Adam set up the international journal Time & Society, providing an institutional platform for the emerging interdisciplinary field focused on social time.

Honours In 1991, she was awarded the Philip Abrams Memorial Prize by the British Sociological Association for her monograph Time and Social Theory. In 1995, she was awarded the J T Fraser Prize by the International Society for the Study of Time for her monograph Timewatch: The Social Analysis of Time.

In 2013, she was elected as a fellow of the Learned Society of Wales (FLSW).

Selected work

Research monographs Adam, Barbara (1990). Time and Social Theory. Cambridge: Polity Press; Philadelphia: Temple, UP. . Japanese translation: 1997 Hosei University Press, Tokyo. . Chinese translation: 2008: Beijing Normal University Publishing Group, Beijing . Adam, Barbara (1995). Timewatch: The Social Analysis of Time. Cambridge: Polity Press; Williston, VT: Blackwell. German translation. (2005) Das Diktat der Uhr, transl. Frank Jakubzik, Frankfurt, a.M.: Suhrkamp, Edition Zweite Moderne . Italian translation. (2005) Timewatch. Per un’analise sociale del tempo, transl. Ester Dornetti, Milano: Baldini Castoldi Dalai. Korean translation.( 2009) ILSIN Publishing Company . Adam, Barbara (1998). Timescapes of Modernity: The Environment and Invisible Hazards. London: Routledge. Adam, Barbara (2004). Time. Cambridge, Malden, MA: Polity. Polity. . Slovenian translation. (2010) Čas, Ljubljana: Maribor. Polish translation. (2011) Czas, Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Sic!. Adam, Barbara; Groves, Chris (2007). Future Matters: Action, Knowledge, Ethics. Leiden: Brill. . Adam Barbara; Oliver, Seth (2026). Drawing Futures: An Alchemy of Words and Images Cardiff: Graffeg. (hb).

Edited works

Adam, Barbara; Allan, Stuart (1995). Theorising Culture: An Interdisciplinary Critique After Postmodernism. London: UCL Press, New York: NYUP. (hb), (pb). Adam, Barbara; Geissler, Karlheiz; Held, Martin (1997) Die Non-Stop Gesellschaft und ihr Preis. Stuttgart/Leipzig: Hirzel, Wissenschaftliche Verlagsgesellschaft. (pb). Adam, Barbara; Allan, Stuart; Carter, Cynthia, eds. (1999). Environmental Risks and the Media. London: Routledge. . Adam, Barbara; Beck, Ulrich; van Loon, Joost (2000). The Risk Society and Beyond. Critical Issues for Social Theory. London and Thousand Oaks: Sage. (hb), (pb). Chinese translation: 2005 Beijing House Publishing Group, pp. 366. (pb). Adam, Barbara; Whipp, Richard; Sabelis, Ida (2002) Making Time. Time and Management in Modern Organizations. Oxford: Oxford UP. (hb), (pb). Chinese translation 2010: Beijing Normal University Press, Beijing. .