kevinbirth 2013 calendars

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Calendars: Representational homogeneity and heterogeneous timeKevin Birth

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Article

Calendars:

Representationalhomogeneity andheterogeneoustime

Kevin BirthQueens College, CUN, U!A"

Abstract#ime $ !ociety

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Calendars and almanacs are ob/ects designed to allo9 users to

gain inormation about time that results rom complicatedcalculations and observations, and to do so 9ithout having toreplicate these cognitive tas-s" 1b/ects based on ;regoriancalendrical logic have eatures that lead one to thin- that theyrepresent homogeneous time, yet, adaptations o the;regorian calendar as maniest in calendars and almanacsallo9 the homogeneous temporal rame9or- to be used as apalimpsest or the representation o distinctive temporalities"#his argument challenges the importance Anderson gives to

homogeneous empty time as represented by ne9spapers in2magined Communities, and o


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Corresponding author:

Kevin Birth, 0epartment o Anthropology, Queens College, CUN, ?lushing, N((+)3, U!A"

@mail: -evin"birthc"cuny"edu

stories, and awareness of other readers created an imagined community: he

date at the top of the newspaper, the single most important emblem on it,

pro"ides the essential connection#the steady onward clocking of homogeneous

empty time$ %&''(: ))*. he mass production of newspapers was also important

#Anderson refers to them as one day best+sellers$ %&''(: )* and emphasi-es

their consumption in solitude combined with their daily obsolescence. hile

performing such habits each communicant is well aware that the ceremony he

performs is being replicated simultaneously by thousands %or millions* of others

of whose e/istence he is confident, yet of whose identity he has not the slightest

notion$ %&''(: )*. he appearance of uni"ersal chronicity in the daily, serial

progression of dates on newspapers then promoted a sense of homogeneous

empty time that allow the reader to conceptuali-e relationships of simultaneity

with an imagined community.

In he 0pectre of Comparisons %1223*, Anderson further de"elops his idea

that the temporality promoted by newspapers culti"ated a sense of uni"ersalseriali-ation and simultaneity. 4et in this analysis, Anderson de"elops the

notion of a contrasting bound$ seriality characteri-ed by the rhythm of

censuses and elections. his bound seriality cuts against homogeneity. In it not

all time is e5ual, and moments allow the definition of both temporal and social

heterogeneity. Bound seriality contrasts with unbound seriality#the

homogeneous empty time of newspapers. In de"eloping the contrast, Anderson

allows for the emergence of forms of temporal hybridity. 6"en though

Anderson builds his case for homogeneous empty time through a discussion of

newspapers in 6urope, his framework of bound in relationship to unbound

seriality allows him to discuss the complicated forces acting upon the

construction of national identity in postcolonial conte/ts. he structure of his

argument is that the processes of nationalism that emerged in 6uropean print

media was diffused by colonialism throughout the world, and these processes

ha"e become constituti"e of collecti"e identities in the process of

decoloni-ation and in the formation of identities after independence was

achie"ed.


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he consumption of calendars and almanacs is different from newspapers.

>ewspapers are a daily product? almanacs and calendars are annual products.

>ewspapers are consulted by their consumers as part of a daily habit? calendarsand almanacs are usually used to mark and note occasions. >ewspapers are

ob@ects that are often discarded after being read? calendars and almanacs are

kept and consulted for a year. A copy of a newspaper tends to be consumed by

one person at a time? calendars are often displayed so that many people can

refer to them. In 6ngland, from the 1< th+ through the early 12th+centuries, the

circulation of almanacs dwarfed that of newspapers: in 13') the imes of

ondon had a circulation of 1''' in contrast to the 13'& circulation of the

almanac o/ 0tellarum, which was )(,''' %Capp, 12


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leap year. espite all the knowledge embodied in these artifacts, they are 5uite

easy to use. It is possible for someone to know on what day of the week

>o"ember will fall simply by consulting a calendar? and if one wanted toknow the time of sunset on the day of the ne/t full moon, one consults an

almanac. hus, calendars and almanacs incorporate a great deal of knowledge

in an easy to use form.

>ot only do calendars and almanacs represent their ideas in easy to

understand ways, but they also hide aspects of their logic and function. 7or

instance, most users of the regorian calendar are aware that it charts the

duration of the 6arth$s orbit, but ha"e little knowledge of how to chart that orbit

by reference to the mo"ement of where the sun rises or sets on the hori-on.

;oreo"er, few are bothered by the anachronistic sur"i"als in the calendar. ylor

defines sur"i"als as processes, opinions, and so forth, which ha"e been carried

on by force of habit into a new state of society different from that in which they

had their original home$ %12&': 1(*. In the case of the regorian calendar, the

months of 0eptember through ecember ha"e atin roots that indicate that they

are the se"enth through the tenth months of the year, rather than their present

position as the ninth through the twelfth months. 7or that matter, the word

month$ is a remnant from the charting of lunar cycles#something that the

regorian calendar$s months do not do. In the case of almanacs, the arcaneknowledge used to produce their astrological and meteorological predictions is

purposefully and e/plicitly hidden from users to gi"e them the "eil of secrecy.

he "alidity and usefulness of calendars and almanacs is taken for granted#

they fall s5uarely into the category of cultural productions ;iller calls stuff$:

they are ubi5uitous %&'1': *, and they ha"e a 5uite remarkable capacity for

fading from "iew, and becoming naturali-ed, taken for granted, the background

of frame to our beha"iour$ %&'1': 1*.

he capacity of these ob@ects to be ubi5uitous frames for beha"ior while

being taken for granted gi"es them the 5uality which Austin calls speech

acts$#a case where stating something is doing something %12(&: (*. By stating

it is April, calendars make it April for their users, and by stating that the planets

are aligned in an auspicious way on a particular day, astrological almanacs

make it so for their readers. he self+referentiality in these representational

ob@ects gi"es them great power to frame and organi-e beha"ior#

theirrepresentationsarenaturali-edinsuchawayastobebeyond challenge. his

makes the distribution of calendars and almanacs a powerful means of


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con"eying cultural meanings, imposing social rhythms and cycles, and making

the timing of cultural e"ents seem significant. his is why one of the first

accoutrements of independence is national holidays#the go"ernment of thenew nation indelibly putting its stamp on the calendar. he

potentialtoeducatethroughcontrollingaspectsofthecalendarisalsoimportantinman

yreligions#these5uenceandtimingofsacredceremoniesisoften used to tell sacred

stories, whether it be the death and resurrection of =esus %Holy eek*, the

e/odus of the Hebrews from 6gypt %8asso"er*, the "ictory of 8rahlada o"er his

aunt and father %Holi or 8hagwa*, or the death of Husayn %Ashura*. Indeed,

calendars become a means of maintaining religious identity across space

through the temporal coordination ritual acti"ity and the telling of the sacred

stories associated with particular dates. 7or this reason, e"en though the

regorian calendar seems ubi5uitous, it co+e/ists with other religious calendars.

Almanacs and temporal politics in (7th= and (4th=

century ;reat Britain

At the beginning of the &1st+century, the calendar is largely taken for granted.

uring the 13th+century in reat Britain, debates about the reform of the

calendar was fodder for many pamphlets and other publications %see 8oole,122, 1223*. Dn the one hand, there was resistance against adopting a calendar

identified with the 8ope. Dn the other hand, the health and wealth of the nation

were of central concerns in these debates and multiple calendars created

complications for commercial transactions. Entil 1


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abundant information about feasts, holidays, commemorations, astrology, and

astronomical cycles and con"ergences. 7or a period starting in the late 1icaea in )& A. he Council

of >icaea had been used in the regorian reforms because the date and

se5uence of most feast days had emerged since then, as well as the


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determination of ;arch &1 as the "ernal e5uino/ for purposes of determining

6aster %Jiggelaar, 123): &&)*. he British calendar reforms adopted the

regorian solution to the astronomical shortcomings of the =ulian calendar#instead of a leap year e"ery four years, years that were di"isible by 1'' but not

by F'' were not leap years.

Issues that emerged from business practices also encouraged calendrical

reform. rade relied on bills of e/change#particularly the profitable trade with

the est Indies. he problem was that different trading partners used different

calendars. If a debt was to be paid between =anuary 1 and;arch &,

theyearinwhichitwasduewasindoubt,andtherewerecourtchallengeso"er

this"eryissue.7orinstance,in1


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to the place where it is payable, and reckon the double usance from the "ery date of

the Bill. %1(: 32*

he 1


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his horrid esign was contri"ed by =esuits, 8riests, and other 8apists, who, by

undermining the 8arliament House, and planting there )( barrels of unpowder

intended, when both Houses were sitting, to ha"e blown up the 9ing, 8rince, andall the oyal 7amily, with the Bishops, >obility and the 7lower of the entry of

the whole 9ingdom? all should at one Blow ha"e become a 0acrifice to the

bloody+minded 8apists, a illainy that no Age or >ation can parallel, and which

was miraculously detected by the 7inger of od, when the "ery rain was laid,

and 7ire almost put to it. %;oore, 1


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hat the way for to con5uer is first to di"ide:

7or 6ngland united, not ome, no nor Hell

Ha"e 8ow$r for to shake us, and much less to 5uell?

Dur sel"es are the Causers of all our own oe,

hile 8rotestants 8rotestants seek to o$erthrow %;oore, 1


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their guardians, nothing could ha"e been added to his foresight$ %122


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contemporaries reading the same rhymes and predictions. But this forging of

contemporaries was not based on homogeneous time, but on a uni5uely

British time.

#rinidads calendar

0uperficially, it appears that two+island nation of rinidad and obago uses the

same calendar as reat Britain#after all, rinidad and obago had been a

British colony. Calling rinidad a former British colony obscures the

comple/ity of colonial processes and di"ersity of populations that settled there.

As a colony it passed from 0panish to British rule in 1


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to which he notes a pattern that is also true of the calendars associated with

these national brands, namely, the use of models who are brown+skinned and

which do not reflect the same range of physiognomy that might be met with ina street$ %122


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chromolithic art. his, in fact, is also true of calendars in India %=ain, &''ow the fourth of Dctober Kthis yearL that is the full moon which they

call 9artik >ahan, when they go out and bathe by the sea...ell, we celebrate8hagwa really on a full moon day also, that is in ;arch month.

he type of calendar this man used is a representation that allows de"out

Hindus to be aware of important astronomical cycles as well as the relationship

between important times in the Hindu calendar and the regorian calendar. he

Hindu emphasis on astrology makes such references important. >ot only should

one know the ma@or Hindu holidays, but also the auspicious days for ma@or

business transactions, for the holding of pu@ahs, and for weddings. In a

community consisting of many small proprietors, the timing of business is

particularly important. Conse5uently, for Hindus, the calendar is not merely a

time+reckoning tool, but an astrological tool. As one man e/plained to me early

in my fieldwork while showing me his Hindu almanac:

his is a calendar with dates listed on it as good for marriage, for building, and

here it ha"e bad days for sickness. In Hinduism, there are good and bad days for

e"ery thing. If a child is born on a bad day, then the pandit assigns prayers to be


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performed or else the child will become sick and die. hen a Hindu is born, the

family go to a pandit who then determines the name. He does this by looking

things up in a book. Hindus don$t do anything by guess, like time.

0e"eral months later, I asked another man about the same issue#he was

regarded as one of the leading authorities on Hinduism in the "illage:

8: >ow you see in e"ery month they ha"e some of the days chosen, auspicious

days. >ow there is a ne/t calendar here which again shows you the same

auspicious days Khe takes out an almanac, and points to different sectionsL: new

building and construction days, you seeM hey ha"e it here as simplified.

8lanting days below the ground, month, different agricultural days Khe pointsto a different sectionL. 0o they show you, now this is eclipse and so on? this is

the moon circle? bad days for sickness, accident, or childbirth#they ha"e that

also? Hindu wedding days.

: How are these days determinedM

8: hey get that through a book they call the 8atram. hat is the guide, and that

8atram has been printed in India by some of the people who study these things.

0uch astrological concern in connection to one$s prospects finds itself into

literary representations of life in rinidad, such as in . 0. >aipaul$s classic AHouse for ;r Biswas %&''1* where the protagonist$s struggles are fre5uently

linked to the astrological alignments of his birth.

;ost wall calendars do not indicate all of that Hindu information, howe"er,

but they are still different from calendars in other nations. he reason for this

has to do with the rhythm of the rinidadian year. >ational holidays are

important occasions for the celebration of nationalism. In his Imagined

Communities, Anderson neglects national commemorations in fa"or of the

homogeneous time of newspapers, but as he recogni-es in some of his work on

0outheast Asia %122', 1223*, it is holidays that ser"e as condensations of

identities and histories, and the temporalities organi-ing these holidays can be

5uite different than 6uropean historical and calendrical logics. rinidad and

obago is remarkable for the shear number of its holidays that are mo"eable in

the regorian calendar. hese include the Christian+based celebrations of

Carni"al and 6aster, the Hindu celebrations of i"ali and 8hagwa, and the

;uslim celebrations of Hosay %the rinidadian name for Ashura* and 6id. 6ach

one of these holidays is an occasion for stories about rinidad$s cosmopolitan$


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composition. Carni"al has been dubbed national theater$ %Hill, 12


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Ne9 ears

D1uvert

Phag9a

@aster

0ivali

Christmas

@id

Eosay

relationship to the regorian calendar, Hindu and ;uslim holidays ha"e clear

patterns that create a distincti"e rhythm of the year. his can be seen in 7igure

1. he only truly mo"eable holidays are Carni"al and 6aster, which are oncycles that only repeat with regard to the day of the year, month, and week

e"ery )& years.

?igure (" Polyrhythm o Eolidays in #rinidad by 0ay o the ear, (474=

%3"

he implication is that while regorian calendars are material media that

represent homogeneous time, it is, in fact, filled with heterogeneous annual

rhythms. he logics of the Hindu and ;uslim calendars are not displayed in the

regorian calendar, but their products shape how the calendar is used. Indeed,

probably the most intersub@ecti"ely shared use of calendars in my fieldsite in

rinidad is to know when Carni"al, i"ali, 8hagwa, and 6id will be, since these

are holidays that are celebrated locally, and all holidays which do not fall on a

fi/ed regorian date. he mi/ture of logics becomes apparent as people speak

of the holidays that mo"e in relationship to the regorian calendar. In one

discussion of such issues, I was told: e celebrate 8hagwa on a full moon day

also, that is in ;arch month. 4ou see, in ;arch month this year gone we ha"e

8hagwa on the tenth of ;arch, that was a full moon day$. his person placed


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8hagwa within the regorian month of ;arch, but also was aware of its

mo"ing relati"e to the full moon of that month.

here is also a beha"ioral conse5uence to holidays mo"ing in a regorianframework. his appearance of mo"ement from year to year makes anyone who

wishes to know when these holidays will occur reliant on a calendar. he

mo"ement of Carni"al, 6aster, i"ali, 8hagwa, 6id, and Hosay in the regorian

calendar compel rinidadians to use calendars, and not merely to use them, but

to place calendars in locations where they are easily seen and consulted.

As a material ob@ect then, despite the homogeni-ing temporal logic of the

regorian calendar, rinidadian "ersions of the calendar are used to keep track

of rhythms distincti"e to rinidad. ;oreo"er, it is the temporally homogeneous

structure of the regorian calendar that produces the heterogeneous mo"ement

of holidays with timings originally determined by non+regorian calendrical

logics. he global hegemony of the regorian calendar that seems to create a

common calendar among nations has become a template for national calendrical

differences. hese differences are reproduced and distributed through printed

calendars, and increasingly through electronic de"ices and downloaded

applications. astly, states create their own holidays to display their own

distincti"eness#the process of decoloni-ation in"ol"ed the choice of the day to

become independent, and conse5uently, the anchor for a national holiday. If oneconsults the D/ford Companion to the 4ear %Blackburn and Holford+0tre"ens,

1222* to get a sense of how these independence days are distributed throughout

the year, one is struck by how rare it is for a single date to be attached to

independence in two different nations. In the 8hilippines, there was a period in

which its independence day was shared with the Enited 0tates by "irtue of it

being granted independence on =uly Fth. But there was dissatisfaction with this

date, so in 12(F the 8hilippines changed its independence day to =uly 1&th#the

date on which 7ilipino nationalists declared independence form 0pain in 1323.1

Conclusion

Anderson$s representation of the emergence of nationalism which pri"ileges

homogeneous time represented by newspapers is incomplete. >ationalist

sentiments are not culti"ated by a representation of homogeneous time, and

newspapers are not the primary media for the distribution of time. In 13th+

century reat Britain, it was not the adoption of the same calendar as the rest of


22/25

6urope that fostered British identity, but the resistance to that calendar for

almost &'' years, coupled with distincti"e British features of that calendar. In

rinidad, the regorian calendar$s homogeni-ing logic suppresses the Hinduand ;uslim calendars at the same time as making Hindu and ;uslim holidays

seem mo"eable, but the ob@ecti"e manifestation of the regorian calendar is not

homogeneous#not e"en from one year to the ne/t. Instead, it represents the

rhythm and mo"ement of rinidad$s ma@or religious holidays, with two of those

holidays, Carni"al and 6aster, ha"ing "ery irregular patterns, and the other

religious holidays, mo"ing through the year in "ery predictable ways.

rinidadian time is polyrhythmic. he rinidadian pattern parallel$s =ain$s

description of India where it is not so much the newspaper and the no"el which

pro"ide a sense of shared time and e/perience at the le"el of the nation... but

forms like the calendar$ %122:


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religion, and year to year e"en among those who use the superficially uniform

regorian calendar.

Ac-no9ledgements

I thank =anet Hoskins and the anonymous re"iewers for their comments.

Note

1. I would like to thank =anet Hoskins for sharing this e/ample with me.

Reerences

Anderson B %1223* he 0pectre of Comparisons. ondon: erso.Anderson B %&''(* Imagined Communities: eflections on the Drigin and 0pread of

>ationalism, %re"ised edition*. ondon: erso.

Austin = %12(&* How to o hings with ords. Cambridge, ;A: Har"ard

Eni"ersity 8ress.

Birth 9 %forthcoming* 0igns and onders: he Encanny erum and the Anthropological

Illusion, in a"id ipset and 8aul oscoe %eds.* 6choes of the ambaran:

;asculinity, History and the 0ub@ect in the ork of onald 7. u-in. Canberra,

>0: Australian >ational Eni"ersity 6 8ress.

Blackburn B and Holford+0tre"ens %1222* he D/ford Companion to the 4ear: An6/ploration of Calendar Customs and ime+reckoning. D/ford: D/ford

Eni"ersity 8ress.

Capp B %12


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=ain 9 %&''


25/25

8onko =r %12(3* he 8ri"y Council and the 0pirit of 6li-abethan 6conomic

;anagement, 13+1('). ransactions of the American 8hilosophical 0ociety, >ew

0eries 3: 1().8oole %122* i"e Es Dur 6le"en ays!$: Calendar eform in 6ighteenth+century

6ngland. 8ast and 8resent 1F2: 21)2.

8oole %1223* ime$s Alteration: Calendar eform in 6arly ;odern 6ngland.

ondon: EC 8ress.

8ostill = %&''&* Clock and Calendar ime: A ;issing Anthropological 8roblem. ime

and 0ociety 11: &1&ew Ha"en:

4ale Eni"ersity 8ress.

aylor C %&''

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