Calendars and almanacs are objects designed to allow users to gain information about time that results from complicated calculations and observations, and to do so without having to replicate these cognitive tasks. Objects based on Gregorian calendrical logic have features that lead one to think that they represent homogeneous time, yet, adaptations of the Gregorian calendar as manifest in calendars and almanacs allow the homogeneous temporal framework to be used as a palimpsest for the representation of distinctive temporalities. This argument challenges the importance Anderson gives to homogeneous empty time as represented by newspapers in Imagined Communities, and offers an object-mediated alternative in which the counterpoint of temporal homogeneity and heterogeneity in the material manifestation of calendars and almanacs becomes a crucial means of imagining community. These issues are explored through historical evidence of calendars and almanacs in early modern Great Britain and ethnographic evidence from Trinidad.
AndersonB (1998) The Spectre of Comparisons. London: Verso.
2.
AndersonB (2006) Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. (revised edition), London: Verso.
3.
AustinJL (1962) How to Do Things with Words. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
4.
Birth K (forthcoming) Signs and Wonders: The Uncanny Verum and the Anthropological Illusion, in David Lipset and Paul Roscoe (eds.) Echoes of the Tambaran: Masculinity, History and the Subject in the Work of Donald F. Tuzin. Canberra, NSW: Australian National University E Press.
5.
Blackburn B and Holford-StrevensL (1999) The Oxford Companion to the Year: AnExploration of Calendar Customs and Time-reckoning. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
6.
CappB (1979) English Almanacs 1500-1800: Astrology and the Popular Press. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
7.
CurryP (1989) Prophecy and Power: Astrology in Early Modern England. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
8.
FlamsteedJ (1997) The Correspondence of John Flamsteed, First Astronomer Royal, Volume II In: Forbes EricGMurdinLesleyWillmothFrances (eds) Bristol: Institute of Physics Publishing.
9.
HillE (1972) The Trinidad Carnival: Mandate for a National Theatre. Austin: University of Texas Press.
10.
HoskinsJ (1993) The Play of Time: Kodi Perspectives on Calendars, History, and Exchange. Berkeley: University of California Press.
11.
HutchinsE(1999) Cognitive Artifacts. In: Wilson RobertAKeil FrankC (eds) MIT Encyclopedia of the Cognitive Sciences. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 126–127.
12.
JainK (1995) Of the Everyday and the’National Pencil’: Calendars in Postcolonial India. Journal of Arts and Ideas. 27–28–27–28. 57–89.
13.
JainK (2007) Gods in the Bazaar: The Economies of Indian Calendar Art. Durham: Duke University Press.
14.
JamesCLR (1993) Beyond a Boundary. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
15.
LeibnizGW(1997) Leibniz to the Royal Society 30 January 1699/1700. In: Forbes EricGMurdinLesleyWillmothFrances (eds) The Correspondence of John Flamsteed, First Astronomer Royal, volume II. Bristol: Institute of Physics Publishing, pp. 805–810.
16.
MariusJ (1655) Advice Concerning Bils of Exchange. ed. 2nd Edition, London: W.H. (The Making of the Modern World, Gale, accessed from City University of New York: http://galenet.galegroup.com).
17.
McCluskeySC (1998) Astronomies and Culture in Early Medieval Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
18.
MillerD (1997) Capitalism: An Ethnographic Approach. Oxford: Berg.
19.
MillerD (2010) Stuff. Cambridge: Polity.
20.
MooreF (1724) Vox Stellarum. London: Thomas Wood(The Making of the Modern World, Gale, accessed from City University of New York: http://galenet.galegroup.com).
21.
MooreF (1738) Vox Stellarum. London: Samuel Idle(The Making of the Modern World, Gale, accessed from City University of New York: http://galenet.galegroup.com).
22.
MooreF (1800) Vox Stellarum. London: William Thorne(The Making of the Modern World, Gale, accessed from City University of New York: http://galenet.galegroup.com).
23.
NaipaulVS (2001) A House for Mr Biswas. New York: Vintage International.
24.
NorthJD(1983) The Western Calendar—‘Intolerabilis, Horribilis, et Derisibilis’: Four Centuries of Discontent. In: CoyneGVHoskinMAPedersenO (eds) Gregorian Reform of the Calendar. Vatican City: Specola Vaticana, pp. 75–113.
25.
ParkerW (1753) A Letter to a Person of Scrupulous Conscience about the Time of Keeping Christmas, According to the New-stile In: BaldwinR (eds) London: (The Making of the Modern World, Gale, accessed from City University of New York: http://galenet.galegroup.com).
26.
PartridgeJ (1721) Merlinus Liberatus: An Almanack for the Year of our Bleessed Saviour's Incarnation 1721 In: RobertsJ (eds) London: (The Making of the Modern World, Gale, accessed from City University of New York: http://galenet.galegroup.com).
27.
PartridgeJ (1749) Merlinus Liberatus: Being an Almanack for the Year of Our Redemption 1749 In: PhillipsR (eds) London: (The Making of the Modern World, Gale, accessed from City University of New York: http://galenet.galegroup.com).
28.
PonkoVJr (1968) The Privy Council and the Spirit of Elizabethan Economic Management, 1558-1603. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, New Series. 58: 1–63.
29.
PooleR (1995) ‘Give Us Our Eleven Days!’: Calendar Reform in Eighteenth-century England. Past and Present. 149: 95–139.
30.
PooleR (1998) Time's Alteration: Calendar Reform in Early Modern England. London: UCL Press.
31.
PostillJ (2002) Clock and Calendar Time: A Missing Anthropological Problem. Time and Society. 11: 251–270.
32.
SegalD(1994) Living Ancestors: Nationalism and the Past in Postcolonial Trinidad and Tobago. In: BoyarinJonathan (eds) The Politics of TimeSpace. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, pp. 221–239.
33.
SpadaforaD (1990) The Idea of Progress in Eighteenth-century Britain. New Haven: Yale University Press.
34.
TaylorC (2007) A Secular Age. Cambridge: Belknap Press.
35.
ThomasK (1971) Religion and the Decline of Magic. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
36.
TylorEB (1920) Primitive Culture, volume 1. New York: Putnam.
37.
WingT (1738) Olympia Domata In: ParkerA (eds) London: (The Making of the Modern World, Gale, accessed from City University of New York: http://galenet.galegroup.com).
38.
WingT (1752) Olympia Domata In: ParkerT (eds) London: (The Making of the Modern World, Gale, accessed from City University of New York: http://galenet.galegroup.com).
39.
WinstanleyW (1740) Poor Robin: An Almanack. London: Printed for the Company of Stationers(The Making of the Modern World, Gale, accessed from City University of New York: http://galenet.galegroup.com).
40.
ZiggelaarA(1983) The Papal Bull of 1582 Promulgating a Reform of the Calendar. In: CoyneGVHoskinMAPedersenO (eds) Gregorian Reform of the Calendar. Vatican City: Specola Vaticana, pp. 201–239.
