Abstract
The aim of this analysis is to show how monasteries construct and produce specific dimensions of institutional temporality. Many authors view Benedictine monastic tradition as a source of modern disciplined time.1 However, contemporary Benedictine monasteries serve more as a harbour of alternatively perceived temporality than a centre of Western modernization.
As will be shown by the results of our field research in Czech monasteries, different time regimes are lived and produced by monks, nuns and monastery visitors on two levels. The first is the embodied temporality of Benedictine spiritual tradition, which allows the (re)producing of monastic temporality through texts, teaching, living bodies, or even through the architecture of monasteries.
The second level is monastic temporality as a way in which Czech society understood the relevance of the monastic way of life through the perception of 'slower' monastic time. This is illustrated by examples from public media discourse as well as the dynamics of monastic guesthouses, one of the examples.