April 19, 2023 • 37 mins
More nerds than we can count asked why Ilyse is obsessed with calendars, so we distilled that into: are calendars neutral? They aren’t. End of episode?
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Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (00:17):
This is keeping it 101, A killjoys
introduction to religion podcastin 2022-2023. Our work is made
possible through UVM reach grantas well as a Luce AAR advancing
public scholarship grant. We'regrateful to live teach and
record on the current ancestraland unseeded lands of the
Abenaki Wabanaki and Auco Ciscopeoples. As always, you can find
material ways to supportindigenous communities on our
(00:39):
website.
Megan Goodwin (00:40):
What's up nerds?
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (00:42):
Hello,
Megan Goodwin (00:42):
I'm Megan Goodwin, a scholar of American
religions race, gender andpolitics.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (00:47):
Hello, I'm Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst, a
historian of religion, Islamrace and racialization and South
Asia,
Megan Goodwin (00:52):
Ilyse, can ask you a question.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (00:54):
Yes, you can. Very important. Are
Megan Goodwin (00:55):
you ready? Okay, okay.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (00:58):
I'm nervous.
Megan Goodwin (01:00):
What time is it?
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (01:02):
There are several answers to this
question, but the right answeris game time.
Megan Goodwin (01:06):
It's time to get ill come on.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (01:09):
I went game time you thought you were
making a sports joke. Do itagain. Do it again. All right.
Megan Goodwin (01:14):
It was right there. It was about you. It was
about time.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (01:17):
It was about me being a time
taskmaster, since we startedlate today. Keep going.
Megan Goodwin (01:22):
Hey, hey. I have a very important question for
you. You're ready. I'm ready.
Okay, okay. What time is it?
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (01:31):
It's time to get ill. Yes.
Megan Goodwin (01:33):
Thank you, Jesus.
Welcome back to another episodeof Keeping it 101 Nerds. We are
very professional podcast.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (01:42):
Well, I mean, everyone is professional
when it comes to the beasties.
Megan Goodwin (01:49):
Yeah, hey, what are we doing today?
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (01:53):
Well, I have a feeling you asked me
about what time it was becausetoday it's another so glad you
asked episode. Which, if I canremind the nerds Megan, our
election of episodes where weanswer their burning questions
totally and completely all inone episode. Love it. Love it.
Megan Goodwin (02:12):
What burning question was in the soul of our
nerds today?
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (02:17):
So I get this question a lot, on and
offline. Most people ask it inworried possibly hushed tones.
It's a lot of like, Ilyse,Ilyse, why do you only talk
about calendars? Or at least wegot it. You can't really stand
winter break. But are you okay?
Or Ilyse you know that thissounds obsessive? And this one,
(02:40):
which I think you have asked mewith this tone. Ilyse, not
everything is about time.
Megan Goodwin (02:50):
It's less of a question and more of a comment.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (02:52):
I mean, that is your vibe.
Megan Goodwin (02:53):
How dare you but also that's correct. Time isn't
real. So I'm ya know why? Whyare we talking about this all
the time.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (03:01):
First of all time is constructed. But
that doesn't mean it's not realMegan, that is like our whole
thing. It does work in the worldand orders us and conceals
power. So don't tell the nerdsit isn't real because they ask
them questions about calendars.
Because time is real, even ifit's also sort of made up but
calendars also made up and alsohilariously real.
Megan Goodwin (03:25):
I mean, they do fuck up my whole life a lot for
things that are not technicallyreal. So Fine. Yes, fine. Okay,
fine. I am admittedly poking atone of your most tender spots, I
believe you when you say time isreal, even though I don't
understand it or fully believein it, but I believe you. And I
own a number of calendars. Sothose are also real, I guess,
(03:48):
technically. But like, why arewe so glad that our nerds asked
about calendars? And also, whatare they asking?
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (03:56):
Well, rest assured, our beloved nerds
are not just asking whether ornot I need supervision around a
scheduling app. These came inboth in the snarky ones I've
already listed but also a numberof questions like, "can you say
more about why calendars upsetyou so much?" There have been a
number of variations on why dowe say calendars aren't neutral,
(04:18):
which is frankly what we'regoing to focus on today. We've
got a several questions aboutcan we talk about calendars that
aren't imperialist, which feelsupside down to me? Why would we
ever not talk about imperialism?
And my favorite question, whichwhich I got in a DM on Twitter
was, "did a calendar hurt you?"
Megan Goodwin (04:36):
Why I'm so glad you Okay, so I think I know the
answer to that question, whichis yes, calendars hurt you,
calendars hurt me all the time,but in different ways. Oh, let's
get into it, maybe? Yeah.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (04:52):
Yeah, I think I think we should just
dig in. So I've got us organizedin a few ways today, but we're
going to talk about time itself.
Megan Goodwin (05:04):
Coming from the beginning of time. Yeah,
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (05:07):
no, this is like, from the
beginning, as history hasunfolded throughout time in
place. First and foremost,calendars have always always
confused the hell out of me andfascinated me to no end. You
know why Megan?
Megan Goodwin (05:21):
No, why?
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuers (05:22):
Because I'm Jewish. You see,
Megan Goodwin (05:25):
this is brand new information!
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (05:28):
What that means is, for me in my tiny
calendar obsessed brain is thatI have always done two new
years, one in January with therest of the world that uses a
Gregorian calendar and one inthe fall whenever Rosh Hashanah
rolls around in the Hebrewcalendar month of Tishrei. Now,
(05:51):
I'm going to do some nerding outabout time itself.
Megan Goodwin (05:54):
Love that for you.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (05:56):
The reason that there are two new
year's isn't because Jewsarbitrarily decided that fall
makes more sense as a new yearthan like, the middle of the
winter.
Megan Goodwin (06:03):
I mean, they're right.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (06:04):
Even though I do think it makes more
sense?
Megan Goodwin (06:07):
Which is also due at the end of October, beginning
of November, just it's a goodtime to like roll into a new
season and new year anyway.
Right?
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (06:16):
It makes sense in a particular way.
The real reason that happens isit because a bunch of Jews got
together, you know, like 6000years ago, and we're like, "Yo,
this makes a ton of sense." It'sbecause the Hebrew calendar is
lunisolar, which means itaccounts for the lunar calendar,
that is to say phases of themoon, as well as the solar
(06:37):
calendar, which is to say wherethe sun is in the Earth's sky.
All of these are pre modernscientific ways to measure time.
Neither fully accounts forexactly the like, the algorithm
of days, right. So like that.
They're like 365.2417 bla blabla bla bla bla bla, days...
Megan Goodwin (06:57):
do you hear how fake it is? I'm just fine.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (06:59):
I mean, frankly, it feels more
fake now that we actuallyquantified it. And there's like
a repeating decimal in it. Asopposed to people who operated
from a lunar calendar beinglike, these 12 months of the
year, these 12 cycles of themoon. That makes sense, or the
people who followed like astrict solar calendar who were
like, we've noticed that the sunhas returned to the same point
(07:21):
in the sky and theconstellations are back to where
we thought they were originally.
Or this lunisolar saying, that'slike, neither of those are quite
right. So we'll do this weirdhybrid calendar thing. Now a
lunisolar calendar is why themonths bounce around, and all
Jewish holidays move about theGregorian calendar, but do not
roll around the whole year,which is Muslim, like what
(07:45):
Muslim holidays do since theIslamic calendar is a lunar
calendar. Okay.
Megan Goodwin (07:51):
Okay, that was so much time already. And bull that
gif of Lady give up the ladywith the numbers dancing all
over her face. While, she looksconstipated. But all right. What
I think I hear you saying isthat we don't even agree if we
need to measure time using themoon or the sun or the moon and
the sun. And that changes howpeople experience time.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (08:15):
Yeah, yeah. And so I'm using Jews,
Muslims, and then this Christiancalendar because they are things
I think people are familiarwith. But we could do this with
other calendars, and we mightlater on the episode. So let me
explain this in a different way.
For Jews, Rosh Hashanah is notglued down, Passover isn't glued
down. There's not one day of theyear that it happens with
(08:35):
respect to the Gregoriancalendar, but the season remains
the same because of thislunisolar calendaring. For
Muslim, which is a little bitdifferent. No, go ahead.
Megan Goodwin (08:49):
Okay, so Rosh Hashanah doesn't happen on like
October 12 every year but italways is kind of in the fall.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (08:57):
That's exactly right. Okay. Because of
this lunisolar calendar let meexplain the opposite right. So
this are not the opposite thelunar calendar so for Muslims,
there's 12 Islamic months thatare based on the new moons, and
those months never change, themonth of Ramadan is always
Ramadan, it always followsShavon and preceeds Shawwal, but
(09:19):
Ramadan does not have a fixedseason. So the Islamic year is
about 10 days shorter than theGregorian year, the year that we
use in America. So holidays andfestivals like Ramadan or Eid
tend to appear to quote unquotemove back by 10 days compared to
the common -era calendar, whichis to say some years if like
(09:43):
Ramadan started on June 10 ofthis year, next year, it might
start on June 1st. Okay, so soRamadan does not have a season
but it is always the same month.
Megan Goodwin (09:55):
Okay. So it's always always the same month,
but 10 years apart, one Ramadancould be in like June and then
then 10 years later it could bein like December.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (10:06):
Yes.
Megan Goodwin (10:07):
So the month is the same on the Islamic
calendar, but not on theGregorian calendar.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (10:12):
That's exactly right.
Megan Goodwin (10:14):
Okay. So I know that we owe our Muslim friends
and brothers and sisters andkindred so much in terms of math
and science. And also I'm sorry,but the still feels made up to
me and I am awash in space andalso time. And it feels like
(10:34):
wibbly wobbly, timey, wimey,nonsense.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (10:39):
Way to make it about nerd culture.
Megan Goodwin (10:40):
Thank you.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (10:41):
In fairness, it's constructed
right. Now, I know you commawitch the moons make sense to
you. Yeah,
Megan Goodwin (10:52):
yeah. I mean, yes, except when they're space
stations.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (10:54):
Fair.
I assume the sun makes somesense to you. Like, you know
what that is?
Megan Goodwin (10:59):
I mean, it's trying to kill me. But sure,
fine. Yes. I believe in the sun.
I see it almost every day.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (11:04):
And you can accept that the sun is
higher in the sky in the summermonths and lower in the sky in
the winter months, and that wemight have observed that as vast
communities across the world atsome point.
Megan Goodwin (11:18):
Yes, okay. Fine.
I will allow it. Yes. Cool.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (11:20):
And we might even imagine that people
would have observed the moonchanging its phases and such,
and the sun doing its high lowthing in the sky at the same
time that they would havenoticed night and light and made
those things work together. Sowe can make sense of a lunar
calendar, and a solar calendarand a lunisolar calendar.
Megan Goodwin (11:39):
Sure, yes.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (11:41):
Dope.
Me too. What makes less sense tome is that at some point, we
imposed one way one way ofthinking about time, and it
still needs alterations to beright. So like we still have a
leap year because like it'sstill not right.
Megan Goodwin (11:57):
Yeah, it's not well and don't even get me
started frickin time zones anddaylight savings time. And it's
just, okay, all right. So I feellike I suspect in in my heart of
hearts, I feel that imperialismmoment coming on, I feel like
you're gonna tell me thatcalendars are actually about
imperialism, which is kind ofsort of what I heard the nerds
asking about when they asked whyyou're mad about it. I think
(12:18):
they know enough now to knowthat if you're mad it's probably
imperialism so fine, let's let'stalk about the year of someone
else's Lord. My friend
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuers (12:27):
Goodwin This is my favorite you phrase
this is my favorite casual MeganGoodwin phrase and you've been
doing it since grad school wherelike you'll say when you're
really mad about presentismright the idea that something
"now" should be better than itwas "then" wherever now is and
whenever then was you wouldalways in grad school be like in
the year of someone else's Lord1989 And it was fucking
(12:49):
hilarious and you still do it.
It's the best.
Megan Goodwin (12:51):
Straight up stole that from Keisha Ali. That is a
Keisha Ali-ism...
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (12:54):
Oh, really? Yeah, then more props.
More props to one of ourfavorite scholars Keisha. But
fine. So stealing from both ofyou, "the year of someone else's
Lord" is one of the best ways tomake the imperialist elephant in
the room, visible, visible,visible, visible.
(13:21):
So let's talk about it. Let'stalk about the year of someone
else's Lord and nerds. This isthe section in which I get mad
that it's the year 2022 At thetime of recording. That's it,
I'm just mad that it's thisyear, it doesn't make sense. But
bear with me, so good when whenI grade, I get really finicky
about when students write B.C.
or A.D. And frankly, I canalways tell the kids that came
(13:41):
up through Catholic schoolbecause they all right, BC and
AD. But I'm also not thrilledwith the secular beat like,
allegedly secular, BCE/CE,labeling, it's like a new label
on an old can "before the commonera" is somehow more insidious
to me than "before Christ" and"Anno Domini" or "the year of
(14:04):
our Lord" in Latin. Which wemost associate with the Catholic
Church, quite frankly.
Megan Goodwin (14:10):
Speaking of imperialism!
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (14:12):
Uh huh uh huh, way to see the road
ahead of us. But like when wesay before the Common Era, it's
like, okay, common, to whom? Whodecided that? And when?
Megan Goodwin (14:23):
Yeah, the BC.
Yeah, the BCE/CE thing is athing that I insist that my
students do and then also Ithrow a small tantrum about it
when we're having thatconversation because, and you'll
have to forgive me for quotingLouis CK, who is a gross human,
but this bit lives in my headwhere he talks about how we
measure time and how you cantell Christianity won because
our sense of time itself isJesus plus one. Yeah, Jesus plus
(14:44):
two.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuer (14:47):
Exactly.
But the thing is, we also knowwhen it became common and not
just the church, because Pope,Pope Gregory the 13th,
introduced it in 1582.
That fucking guy...
Smack dab, in that weird moment.
Weird historians like me wouldlabel early modernity, which is
also smack dab at the start ofEuropean colonialism, civilizing
(15:08):
missions and the transatlanticslave trade. We call our
calendar Gregorian because theliteral Pope Gregory decided on
this calendar. And that decisionis straight up located in a
framework of expansion,imperialism, Race Theory and
religious oppression.
Megan Goodwin (15:29):
Yep. Yeah. I mean, this all fits, right? If
you're going to be
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (15:33):
like it does, like they just like
yes, it tracks
Megan Goodwin (15:36):
It should track.
Like, you're going to be aninstitution that divides the
entire world in like dibs.
That's, dibs is it. It's like,hey, Spain and Portugal. Go
nuts. I joke. Sure, sure. Thisthis tracks to be true about
Catholicism, I as aninstitution, but also with the
(15:57):
way that Catholic small-cCatholic works in the world,
right. "Small c-catholicism"Catholic means universal or all
encompassing. It is obviously anargument about the correctness
of Christianity and Catholicismspecifically, although,
particularly at this time, butalso in most of the times
Catholics, don't superacknowledge that other
(16:19):
Christianity's are happeningbecause they kind of think that
everybody else is kidding. So.
So the Gregorian calendar, whichis our calendar, starts from the
very beginning, in an assumptionabout whose years, whose time is
even valid. Even if the move tothe Gregorian calendar from the
Julian one was just aboutstandardizing time, allegedly,
and bringing more people intoagreement? Sure, with an eye
(16:42):
toward, frankly, the science ofhow long an actual year is. And
I think you already mentionedthis, but it's not exact, which
is how we got leap years. Yeah,believe it to imperialism to be
like this is the truth, kind of,but don't ask me questions and
just add a little bit every
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (17:03):
Yeah, I mean, and this wasn't adopted
year.
overnight by everyone, right?
It's not like Pope Gregory islike, "everyone on this
calendar". And everyone's like,"Yes, sir". At first, it was
Catholic led countries thatadopt this calendar, and later
Protestant ones and EasternOrthodox ones. And I'm thinking
of Europe here. And, of course,the colonies and imperialized
(17:26):
States after that, right,because it's not long after the
1580s that we start to see thelike alleged New World, Africa
and Asia be divvied up by theseexact nations. Yep. So my point
here is that this standardizedcalendar gets standardized right
at the historical moment where"standards" become a thing ie
(17:48):
modernity, but also whenChristian Europeans are running
around the world fucking shitup. However, Megan, and this is
where my grump comes in. Becausecalendar has never been the only
calendar it has not only everbeen the year of someone else's
Lord, and for many folks, eventhose of us who use this
(18:08):
calendar and think in time likethis, it is not the only or
exclusive way that weexperienced dates, years, months
and time.
Megan Goodwin (18:24):
All right. Okay.
All right. All right. I loveyou. And of course, you have
made a list of years and ways ofmeasuring time, and it is
delightfully long. So I'm justI'm just gonna read you some of
these this is great. At the timeof our recording kinds of of
year measuring (18:40):
Assyrian
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (18:44):
Let's play, "what year is it?"
Megan Goodwin (18:50):
All of them apparently at the same time. So
if we were using an Assyriancalendar, it would be the year
6771 Jewish or Hebrew calendars5783, Chinese calendar 4720,
Buddhist 2563, Islamic 1443Persian 1400. And I think it's
2022 here, but at this point,I'm honestly not really sure.
(19:13):
And I'm going back to time isfake again. Okay, I'm going to
assume that you know stuff aboutthis because you're smart. And
also you made the list. But whyis the Buddhist measurement of
time separate from Chinesemeasurements of time? I know
there are Chinese Buddhists Iassume there's a Confucianism in
there somewhere. Do Hindus notcare about time numbers? What
(19:38):
how? How is there no South Asiain here, you love it best of
all.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (19:41):
So without going into too much
detail. And without saying that,quite frankly, there are so many
calendars that in the doing ofthe research for this bit. I was
like, oh boy, there's too manycalendars. Even for me who
thought joke was "hey look howmany calendars"
Megan Goodwin (19:59):
hey, well welcome No doubt.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (20:02):
So anyway, the reason I didn't
include Hindus is because theHindu eras are cyclical. So
there's a semi mostly definitelyBrahmanical understanding that
time counts up and down from thelast age, the worst age,
otherwise known as the KaliYuga. Hmm. So to be honest, I
didn't include a Hindu year,because there are more important
(20:22):
things happening about SouthAsian calendars. And the year is
only one part of it. The moreimportant thing about South
Asian calendars is that there'sso goddamn many of them, because
South Asia has been both Unitedand not. So it wasn't until
there needed to be one calendarnationally that the Indian
national calendar was adopted,and then reformed, all these
(20:45):
other calendars from all overSouth Asia. So there's like a
Tamil calendar, a Malioncalendar of Bengali calendar I
could go on. So this internaldiversity seems like a more
interesting point than trying toexplain that. The Kali Yuga is
the fourth era. And it's theworst era and it counts up and
down. So like it counts fromzero and goes forward, like
0123. But also when it gets toits end time, it just kind of
(21:08):
starts over again. So Hindusmight be in a, in a year that
like starts with a 19. But theirtime counts back like 6000 years
because of these cycles, reallymore like 10s of 1000s of years
because of these cycles.
Megan Goodwin (21:24):
I like this much better. This makes way more
sense to me, for me, like I feelcomforted. It feels a little bit
like time and an MC Escherpainting
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (21:31):
does it like 100% That's how I
describe it when I teach it. ButI also want people to hear that
this internal diversity alsoexists in these allegedly like
places that seem the same, butthey only seem the same.
Because?
Megan Goodwin (21:45):
imperialism, I knew this I got it, hooray.
Okay. Wow. So things like IndianStandard Time existing is a way
bigger, complicated thing that Irealized, huh?
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (21:58):
Yeah, like as like a brief primary
source. I have a friend andcolleague that I've known since
the early aughts, whose familyowns a jewelry store, and they
always send me a calendar, youknow, it's like one of these
advertising calendars you getfrom like your realtor or
something or like the bank, andit's a jewelry calendar, it has
all the months but the month,okay, so it's a Gregorian
(22:19):
calendar with a Hindu calendaroverlaid, but the jewelry store
is in Chennai, a city inTamilnad, and the Tamil calendar
is also on it. So on the righthand top, like the right top
corner of each box, is likeMarch 123. Then on the left
hand, top, it will be in Hindi,like the Indian national
(22:42):
calendar in Hindi with you know,like all the Holiday National
Holiday Indian nationalholidays, but also like Hindu
holidays that are recognizedacross and then on the bottom
right hand side is the Tamilmonth and date and those
regional specific holidays orTamil, like almost Tamil
nationals, but not reallynationalist. I'm not gonna get
into it, holiday. So it's likethree calendars in one. And that
(23:04):
goes next to my radical Jewishcalendar, which is what it
sounds like. It's a calendarmade by radical Jews that you
send the money and they send youa calendar, and it's great. And
that has like the Gregoriancalendar, and then the Hebrew
months and the Hebrew dates, andit's very confusing, and my
children really love thesecalendars. Because what day is
it? What month is it? There arefive options right here?
Megan Goodwin (23:26):
Okay, so this is better to me. I like the system
entirely better good. To alladmit time is fake. Evne though,
it controls our lives. And solet's just call it a bunch of
things. This Yes, this is
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (23:38):
your takeaway from there are five
real things happening here, orfour real things happening here
is it's all fake. Instead ofthere are four real options. No,
Megan Goodwin (23:47):
no options are real. Okay, so to sum up, it is
2022 for Christians becausethey're winning. Since that is
the number of years Christiansagree since Jesus their literal
God was born. Except pausebecause not even Christians
agree that anymore. I know thatminus five. None of this works.
Everything is made up. And yet,and yet. I still have to show up
(24:12):
for things on time. Rude.
Anyway. All right. So we'recalling this now the common era
because of Pope Gregory makingit standard just as imperial
expansion started happening. Sowhich is to say that the quote
unquote, whole world talks aboutFebruary or November in 2022 on
a standard calendar, and that isinherently Christian
imperialist.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (24:34):
So stop asking me why I'm mad about
it. You know the answer.
Megan Goodwin (24:38):
The answer is imperialism. And the moves
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (24:41):
Yes.
But okay, aside from just theyear of someone else's Lord, I
want to underline that for you,the most important thing I know
in managing your calendar isthat I have to keep explaining
that there are real worldeffects like if you are late,
people might be grumpy orFebruary's real how else we know
it's your birthday month? Yeah,
Megan Goodwin (25:03):
that's important.
That part is real. My birthdayis real even if time is fake.
Yeah. So
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (25:07):
let's talk about real world effects.
Yeah, okay. Sure.
Megan Goodwin (25:10):
So we talked about school calendars. And we
talked about sports teamsbecause of course we did. And we
talked about sports teams notpaying attention to school
calendars. We talked about howeasy it is to run your meetings
and classrooms and book clubswhile thinking about religious
difference because just get somemore calendars. And and and yet,
despite the fact that we havebeen talking about all of these
things for A) As long as I'veknown you and be three years on
(25:33):
the pod now, I definitely triedto schedule you for Rosh
Hashanah like a week ago.
Because Because imperialismbecause my calendar didn't say
it was Rosh Hashana, despite meknowing you talking to you true
AdWords, somewhere between 15and 75 times every single
goddamn day. Ah, can we run apodcast on religious literacy?
(25:55):
And so still, my bad
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (26:03):
way to oppress me, Megan. But also
listen, we all make mistakes.
This is actually the violenceinherent in the system. Even
someone like you who thinksabout religion all the time, who
talks to me 75 times a day. Andthat's conservative as an
estimate. You have to take extrasteps to think about being
accommodating to me, which meansthat there's a barrier for
(26:27):
access for those of us who needothers to do more, I inherently
need you to take that extra stepin order to see me. And if you
haven't taken that extra step, Ibecome invisible, or I have to
advocate for myself and say,Please stop oppressing me,
comma, my best friend.
Megan Goodwin (26:48):
What if you didn't do violence to me on my
calendar? Thanks. Hey, um, funquestion. Are you ever not going
to be mad about this? No. I knewthat.
Ilyse Morgenstein F (26:56):
Absolutely.
Not. I mean, look, I'munderstanding I, I often and I
fully admit this nerds hand onheart, I have to check the
internet several times before Iknow which day is a holiday for
my own religion, depending onthe digital platform, because
Because depending on the digitalplatform, we don't even agree on
how to how to talk about Jewishholidays, some places let's
Jewish holidays, on the firstfull day of that, but just to
(27:19):
make time more frustrating. Andbecause Jews like to be edgy.
Our day ends and starts atsunset, not midnight, which Yep,
again, to me makes a lot ofsense. Yeah. But when you're
quickly looking at a calendar,and it says Yom Kippur is on a
Monday, for example, you have todo American eyes. Or maybe if I
(27:39):
could push it maybe evendecolonize your brain a little
bit and think, Okay, it's listedfor Monday, which really means
the evening prior. So now Igotta go back in and block my
calendar for Sunday sunsetthrough Monday sunset, in order
to make sure that no one throwsa meeting on my calendar for
like 5:30 The day before YomKippur, because they were
(28:03):
looking at a calendar. And theynoticed that the day after was
Yom Kippur war, so 5:30 would befine. And that is literally the
story of how the faculty senatealmost got scheduled on Yom
Kippur, but because Dr.
Borchert, former guest is thepresident of Faculty Senate. He
said, What is the real YomKippur? So I don't schedule this
meeting. But not everybody has aJew in their pocket to be like,
(28:26):
I know when the real Yom Kippuris.
Megan Goodwin (28:28):
not pocket Jew
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuers (28:30):
Anyway, we've learned
Megan Goodwin (28:32):
I'm sorry, but that's, that is going to be the
name of our first app.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (28:37):
And it's just me being like, Yo,
motherfucker, fucking YomKippur. Just blasphemous. Yeah,
Megan Goodwin (28:43):
yeah
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (28:44):
have you called your mother? Yes,
yes. Anyway, we've learned howto be in the world using time
the way "we" use it. So I alsohave to deprogram the like,
Monday Yom Kippur does not meanMonday Yom Kippur, it means the
day before or the eveningbefore. So for Jewish folks and
(29:07):
Muslim folks and for so so manyothers who juggle these multiple
times, years, months, or evenhow we conceive of the day. To
me, one of the reasons I'm nevernot gonna be mad about it, it's
just another way minoritizedpeople have to account for
difference. And again, Goodwin Iwant to make sure that the
podcast listeners hear me saythat I'm not mad at you for
flubbing a holiday this onetime.
Megan Goodwin (29:29):
Thanks, friend.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (29:30):
In fact, I'm grateful that the
second I was like, Oh, shit,it's Rashanna. You said Fuck,
I'll fix it. You didn't make medo that labor. You didn't make
me apologize to the otherperson. We were scheduling for
having a non normative need or areligious accommodation. You
made the mistake. You fixed it.
That is excellent solidaritywork, even if it wasn't perfect,
because guess what?
Megan Goodwin (29:51):
Perfect. Yeah, or you know who's it's Maya Angelou
right who said that, "when youknow better thenn you do
better". So just trying to knowbetter and then do better. Yeah,
yeah. Calendars are also weirdfor witches because we do this
Wheel of the Year thing, wheresome of the dates are fixed in
(30:12):
the Gregorian calendar, and thensome of them are Solstices or
equinoxes. But also if you'repracticing with other people,
then you have to account forother people's schedules, many
of whom don't get the days offfor those holidays. So you're
kind of approximating anastronomical event, but also
close to a weekend and when canpeople make casseroles? So
(30:35):
anyway, time is fake.
One of the questions we got uptop is, is it possible to have
non imperialist calendars likeyou're talking about
decolonizing your brain byrethinking even what a day is?
Oh, can we do calendars outsideimperialism? I feel like
(30:57):
probably not. Right. Because?
Well, I mean, standardizing timeis one of the ways that a
globalized world managesfunctioning, like flights and
business practices, right. Andalso, this is already inside
legacies of imperialism. But Iguess I'm curious if we can aim
(31:17):
for plurality and flexibilityrather than just allowing
capitalism and trade to dictatehow we use our time.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (31:28):
Here, here? And that seems like
enough, right?
Megan Goodwin (31:31):
I think so. That, you know, so let's take her
home.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fue (31:36):
Calendars are not neutral. They can't be.
They are about establishing oneway of thinking about the world.
And we focused on Christianimperialism, because Hi, you've
met me, but ordering things,whether it's time, or anything
else is never neutral. Neverknow, in any scenario, it is
also just Christian imperialismout loud. Literally, Jesus plus
(31:59):
one minus five for somebody'scalendar, we can't escape that
being Christian imperialism, Ijust meant like, even if you are
making a list of categories inyour like, like if you're
ordering something in yourrefrigerator, like how you
choose to set that refrigeratorup, has a politic to it, even if
you are not aware of it, or evenif it doesn't affect anybody
else, right? Like, where we putthe milk so that the kids can
(32:21):
reach it is a choice toprioritize our children's
accessibility to the milk.
That's a political choice. Iwant my kids to have access to
the milk. I've ordered myrefrigerator in that way. So
ordering things is neverneutral. Ordering time is not
neutral under any system. Butthe calendar that we use, which
is Jesus plus one is Christianimperialism, period. The end?
Yes, correct. Yes. All of that,which means that the calendar
(32:43):
you're using nerds isn't neutralbecause the whole world has been
forced some places consensuallyin other places not to use this
calendar.
Megan Goodwin (32:54):
I am definitely never using a calendar
consensually just so that we'reclear like this is always well
aware. I'm well aware. No, youknow, I just need the world to
know and want the world to knowthat when we say like whose
labor is it calendar label foryou is my labor. It's like
begging I know you need to behere right now. Have you left?
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (33:11):
And I love you so much. I'm willing to
do that work.
Megan Goodwin (33:13):
I know. I know.
And it feels like love, even asit also feels like oppression.
I'm sorry, that I'm oppressingyou. I don't think you're
oppressing me. You're justforcing me to live in this
oppressive system so that I canlike go places and do things.
And I appreciate you. Thanks.
Yeah,
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (33:31):
your calendar is not neutral, your
fridge might not be neutralhaving meetings after business
hour is not neutral workingthrough your lunch is not
neutral. How we use our time isnever neutral, how we order our
time is never neutral and howour time has been ordered for us
on a calendar certainly what'snot and is not now neutral so
nerds I'll never not be madabout it. shits imperialist.
Megan Goodwin (33:57):
Perfection. Hey, don't pack up your stuff yet
know. You've got homeworkhomework. It's, it's time in
fact.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (34:08):
We have a non neutral list of
assignments for you today. SoMegan, I'm just going to read
through these I threw togethermy top four or five articles
that I had in my bibliographiesthat I keep on my computer about
time. These are not exhaustive.
These are things I liked. SoVanessa Ogle has one called the
global transformation of time1870 to 1950 with Harvard
University Press in 2015.
(34:32):
There's also a podcast on thaton the new books network that
I'll link everybody to in theshow notes. Nice. See, Philip
Nothaft has an article calledduking it out in the arena of
time chronology in the ChristianJewish encounter 1100 to 1600 in
this journal called "medievalencounters, Jewish Christian and
Muslim culture and Confluenceand dialogue". It's an open
(34:54):
access journal
Megan Goodwin (34:56):
spoilers, the Christians when do they do but
it's a really
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (34:59):
great honor Um, I Liked this article
because it was about likedebates and stuff Ehsaan Kashvi
has an article called "Thepolitics of calendar state
appropriations of the contestedIranian past", which as you
might hear nerds in the title,this is about Iran, which uses
its own calendar, even thoughmost most Iranians are Muslim.
And so there's also thatcalendar operating side by side,
(35:22):
but Persians have kept their owncalendar. So that's an
interesting one. And thenthere's an oldie but a goodie,
this is I think, I read this incollege, Susan drecker, brown,
quote, The politics ofcalendars, rural, simple, super
publicly accessible. It's juston the internet. And it's in an
anthropology journal, and it'sall just from 1989. But it lays
(35:42):
out the issues that we've talkedabout. Now for practical
matters. I will also link folksto one or two interfaith
calendars that you can load ontoyour phones handout in your
schools. Nothing made me happiermy kids first first my elder and
now my younger had the samekindergarten teacher who sent me
an email on like the second dayof school being like, I thought
(36:02):
of you when I handed out aninterfaith calendar to every
member of the staff this yearbecause I'm a podcast listener,
and I was like, ah, mazing soprops to Rachel Barone for doing
the hard work.
Megan Goodwin (36:13):
Yes, Miss Barone, we love her.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (36:17):
Shout out to Evie Wolfe, Rachel Zieff
and Juliana Finch to the KI101team whose work makes this pod
accessible and thereforeawesome, listenable,
socialmedia-able, calendar-ableand other things for which we
are grateful.
Megan Goodwin (36:28):
You can find Meghan that's me on Twitter
pretty much anytime at @mpgPhDand Ilyse @profirm or the show
at keepingit_101. Find thewebsite at keepingit101.com Find
us on Insta and now the tiktoksDrop us a rating or review in
your pod catcher of choice. Andwith that, peace out nerds do
(36:51):
your homework it's on thesyllabus.
Unknown (37:12):
20 million years ago, an ape like creature inhabited
the earth.
(37:40):
The ape stood and became man
This is keeping it 101, A killjoys
introduction to religion podcastin 2022-2023. Our work is made
possible through UVM reach grantas well as a Luce AAR advancing
public scholarship grant. We'regrateful to live teach and
record on the current ancestraland unseeded lands of the
Abenaki Wabanaki and Auco Ciscopeoples. As always, you can find
material ways to supportindigenous communities on our
(00:39):
website.
Megan Goodwin (00:40):
What's up nerds?
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (00:42):
Hello,
Megan Goodwin (00:42):
I'm Megan Goodwin, a scholar of American
religions race, gender andpolitics.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (00:47):
Hello, I'm Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst, a
historian of religion, Islamrace and racialization and South
Asia,
Megan Goodwin (00:52):
Ilyse, can ask you a question.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (00:54):
Yes, you can. Very important. Are
Megan Goodwin (00:55):
you ready? Okay, okay.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (00:58):
I'm nervous.
Megan Goodwin (01:00):
What time is it?
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (01:02):
There are several answers to this
question, but the right answeris game time.
Megan Goodwin (01:06):
It's time to get ill come on.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (01:09):
I went game time you thought you were
making a sports joke. Do itagain. Do it again. All right.
Megan Goodwin (01:14):
It was right there. It was about you. It was
about time.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (01:17):
It was about me being a time
taskmaster, since we startedlate today. Keep going.
Megan Goodwin (01:22):
Hey, hey. I have a very important question for
you. You're ready. I'm ready.
Okay, okay. What time is it?
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (01:31):
It's time to get ill. Yes.
Megan Goodwin (01:33):
Thank you, Jesus.
Welcome back to another episodeof Keeping it 101 Nerds. We are
very professional podcast.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (01:42):
Well, I mean, everyone is professional
when it comes to the beasties.
Megan Goodwin (01:49):
Yeah, hey, what are we doing today?
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (01:53):
Well, I have a feeling you asked me
about what time it was becausetoday it's another so glad you
asked episode. Which, if I canremind the nerds Megan, our
election of episodes where weanswer their burning questions
totally and completely all inone episode. Love it. Love it.
Megan Goodwin (02:12):
What burning question was in the soul of our
nerds today?
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (02:17):
So I get this question a lot, on and
offline. Most people ask it inworried possibly hushed tones.
It's a lot of like, Ilyse,Ilyse, why do you only talk
about calendars? Or at least wegot it. You can't really stand
winter break. But are you okay?
Or Ilyse you know that thissounds obsessive? And this one,
(02:40):
which I think you have asked mewith this tone. Ilyse, not
everything is about time.
Megan Goodwin (02:50):
It's less of a question and more of a comment.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (02:52):
I mean, that is your vibe.
Megan Goodwin (02:53):
How dare you but also that's correct. Time isn't
real. So I'm ya know why? Whyare we talking about this all
the time.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (03:01):
First of all time is constructed. But
that doesn't mean it's not realMegan, that is like our whole
thing. It does work in the worldand orders us and conceals
power. So don't tell the nerdsit isn't real because they ask
them questions about calendars.
Because time is real, even ifit's also sort of made up but
calendars also made up and alsohilariously real.
Megan Goodwin (03:25):
I mean, they do fuck up my whole life a lot for
things that are not technicallyreal. So Fine. Yes, fine. Okay,
fine. I am admittedly poking atone of your most tender spots, I
believe you when you say time isreal, even though I don't
understand it or fully believein it, but I believe you. And I
own a number of calendars. Sothose are also real, I guess,
(03:48):
technically. But like, why arewe so glad that our nerds asked
about calendars? And also, whatare they asking?
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (03:56):
Well, rest assured, our beloved nerds
are not just asking whether ornot I need supervision around a
scheduling app. These came inboth in the snarky ones I've
already listed but also a numberof questions like, "can you say
more about why calendars upsetyou so much?" There have been a
number of variations on why dowe say calendars aren't neutral,
(04:18):
which is frankly what we'regoing to focus on today. We've
got a several questions aboutcan we talk about calendars that
aren't imperialist, which feelsupside down to me? Why would we
ever not talk about imperialism?
And my favorite question, whichwhich I got in a DM on Twitter
was, "did a calendar hurt you?"
Megan Goodwin (04:36):
Why I'm so glad you Okay, so I think I know the
answer to that question, whichis yes, calendars hurt you,
calendars hurt me all the time,but in different ways. Oh, let's
get into it, maybe? Yeah.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (04:52):
Yeah, I think I think we should just
dig in. So I've got us organizedin a few ways today, but we're
going to talk about time itself.
Megan Goodwin (05:04):
Coming from the beginning of time. Yeah,
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (05:07):
no, this is like, from the
beginning, as history hasunfolded throughout time in
place. First and foremost,calendars have always always
confused the hell out of me andfascinated me to no end. You
know why Megan?
Megan Goodwin (05:21):
No, why?
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuers (05:22):
Because I'm Jewish. You see,
Megan Goodwin (05:25):
this is brand new information!
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (05:28):
What that means is, for me in my tiny
calendar obsessed brain is thatI have always done two new
years, one in January with therest of the world that uses a
Gregorian calendar and one inthe fall whenever Rosh Hashanah
rolls around in the Hebrewcalendar month of Tishrei. Now,
(05:51):
I'm going to do some nerding outabout time itself.
Megan Goodwin (05:54):
Love that for you.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (05:56):
The reason that there are two new
year's isn't because Jewsarbitrarily decided that fall
makes more sense as a new yearthan like, the middle of the
winter.
Megan Goodwin (06:03):
I mean, they're right.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (06:04):
Even though I do think it makes more
sense?
Megan Goodwin (06:07):
Which is also due at the end of October, beginning
of November, just it's a goodtime to like roll into a new
season and new year anyway.
Right?
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (06:16):
It makes sense in a particular way.
The real reason that happens isit because a bunch of Jews got
together, you know, like 6000years ago, and we're like, "Yo,
this makes a ton of sense." It'sbecause the Hebrew calendar is
lunisolar, which means itaccounts for the lunar calendar,
that is to say phases of themoon, as well as the solar
(06:37):
calendar, which is to say wherethe sun is in the Earth's sky.
All of these are pre modernscientific ways to measure time.
Neither fully accounts forexactly the like, the algorithm
of days, right. So like that.
They're like 365.2417 bla blabla bla bla bla bla, days...
Megan Goodwin (06:57):
do you hear how fake it is? I'm just fine.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (06:59):
I mean, frankly, it feels more
fake now that we actuallyquantified it. And there's like
a repeating decimal in it. Asopposed to people who operated
from a lunar calendar beinglike, these 12 months of the
year, these 12 cycles of themoon. That makes sense, or the
people who followed like astrict solar calendar who were
like, we've noticed that the sunhas returned to the same point
(07:21):
in the sky and theconstellations are back to where
we thought they were originally.
Or this lunisolar saying, that'slike, neither of those are quite
right. So we'll do this weirdhybrid calendar thing. Now a
lunisolar calendar is why themonths bounce around, and all
Jewish holidays move about theGregorian calendar, but do not
roll around the whole year,which is Muslim, like what
(07:45):
Muslim holidays do since theIslamic calendar is a lunar
calendar. Okay.
Megan Goodwin (07:51):
Okay, that was so much time already. And bull that
gif of Lady give up the ladywith the numbers dancing all
over her face. While, she looksconstipated. But all right. What
I think I hear you saying isthat we don't even agree if we
need to measure time using themoon or the sun or the moon and
the sun. And that changes howpeople experience time.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (08:15):
Yeah, yeah. And so I'm using Jews,
Muslims, and then this Christiancalendar because they are things
I think people are familiarwith. But we could do this with
other calendars, and we mightlater on the episode. So let me
explain this in a different way.
For Jews, Rosh Hashanah is notglued down, Passover isn't glued
down. There's not one day of theyear that it happens with
(08:35):
respect to the Gregoriancalendar, but the season remains
the same because of thislunisolar calendaring. For
Muslim, which is a little bitdifferent. No, go ahead.
Megan Goodwin (08:49):
Okay, so Rosh Hashanah doesn't happen on like
October 12 every year but italways is kind of in the fall.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (08:57):
That's exactly right. Okay. Because of
this lunisolar calendar let meexplain the opposite right. So
this are not the opposite thelunar calendar so for Muslims,
there's 12 Islamic months thatare based on the new moons, and
those months never change, themonth of Ramadan is always
Ramadan, it always followsShavon and preceeds Shawwal, but
(09:19):
Ramadan does not have a fixedseason. So the Islamic year is
about 10 days shorter than theGregorian year, the year that we
use in America. So holidays andfestivals like Ramadan or Eid
tend to appear to quote unquotemove back by 10 days compared to
the common -era calendar, whichis to say some years if like
(09:43):
Ramadan started on June 10 ofthis year, next year, it might
start on June 1st. Okay, so soRamadan does not have a season
but it is always the same month.
Megan Goodwin (09:55):
Okay. So it's always always the same month,
but 10 years apart, one Ramadancould be in like June and then
then 10 years later it could bein like December.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (10:06):
Yes.
Megan Goodwin (10:07):
So the month is the same on the Islamic
calendar, but not on theGregorian calendar.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (10:12):
That's exactly right.
Megan Goodwin (10:14):
Okay. So I know that we owe our Muslim friends
and brothers and sisters andkindred so much in terms of math
and science. And also I'm sorry,but the still feels made up to
me and I am awash in space andalso time. And it feels like
(10:34):
wibbly wobbly, timey, wimey,nonsense.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (10:39):
Way to make it about nerd culture.
Megan Goodwin (10:40):
Thank you.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (10:41):
In fairness, it's constructed
right. Now, I know you commawitch the moons make sense to
you. Yeah,
Megan Goodwin (10:52):
yeah. I mean, yes, except when they're space
stations.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (10:54):
Fair.
I assume the sun makes somesense to you. Like, you know
what that is?
Megan Goodwin (10:59):
I mean, it's trying to kill me. But sure,
fine. Yes. I believe in the sun.
I see it almost every day.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (11:04):
And you can accept that the sun is
higher in the sky in the summermonths and lower in the sky in
the winter months, and that wemight have observed that as vast
communities across the world atsome point.
Megan Goodwin (11:18):
Yes, okay. Fine.
I will allow it. Yes. Cool.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (11:20):
And we might even imagine that people
would have observed the moonchanging its phases and such,
and the sun doing its high lowthing in the sky at the same
time that they would havenoticed night and light and made
those things work together. Sowe can make sense of a lunar
calendar, and a solar calendarand a lunisolar calendar.
Megan Goodwin (11:39):
Sure, yes.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (11:41):
Dope.
Me too. What makes less sense tome is that at some point, we
imposed one way one way ofthinking about time, and it
still needs alterations to beright. So like we still have a
leap year because like it'sstill not right.
Megan Goodwin (11:57):
Yeah, it's not well and don't even get me
started frickin time zones anddaylight savings time. And it's
just, okay, all right. So I feellike I suspect in in my heart of
hearts, I feel that imperialismmoment coming on, I feel like
you're gonna tell me thatcalendars are actually about
imperialism, which is kind ofsort of what I heard the nerds
asking about when they asked whyyou're mad about it. I think
(12:18):
they know enough now to knowthat if you're mad it's probably
imperialism so fine, let's let'stalk about the year of someone
else's Lord. My friend
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuers (12:27):
Goodwin This is my favorite you phrase
this is my favorite casual MeganGoodwin phrase and you've been
doing it since grad school wherelike you'll say when you're
really mad about presentismright the idea that something
"now" should be better than itwas "then" wherever now is and
whenever then was you wouldalways in grad school be like in
the year of someone else's Lord1989 And it was fucking
(12:49):
hilarious and you still do it.
It's the best.
Megan Goodwin (12:51):
Straight up stole that from Keisha Ali. That is a
Keisha Ali-ism...
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (12:54):
Oh, really? Yeah, then more props.
More props to one of ourfavorite scholars Keisha. But
fine. So stealing from both ofyou, "the year of someone else's
Lord" is one of the best ways tomake the imperialist elephant in
the room, visible, visible,visible, visible.
(13:21):
So let's talk about it. Let'stalk about the year of someone
else's Lord and nerds. This isthe section in which I get mad
that it's the year 2022 At thetime of recording. That's it,
I'm just mad that it's thisyear, it doesn't make sense. But
bear with me, so good when whenI grade, I get really finicky
about when students write B.C.
or A.D. And frankly, I canalways tell the kids that came
(13:41):
up through Catholic schoolbecause they all right, BC and
AD. But I'm also not thrilledwith the secular beat like,
allegedly secular, BCE/CE,labeling, it's like a new label
on an old can "before the commonera" is somehow more insidious
to me than "before Christ" and"Anno Domini" or "the year of
(14:04):
our Lord" in Latin. Which wemost associate with the Catholic
Church, quite frankly.
Megan Goodwin (14:10):
Speaking of imperialism!
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (14:12):
Uh huh uh huh, way to see the road
ahead of us. But like when wesay before the Common Era, it's
like, okay, common, to whom? Whodecided that? And when?
Megan Goodwin (14:23):
Yeah, the BC.
Yeah, the BCE/CE thing is athing that I insist that my
students do and then also Ithrow a small tantrum about it
when we're having thatconversation because, and you'll
have to forgive me for quotingLouis CK, who is a gross human,
but this bit lives in my headwhere he talks about how we
measure time and how you cantell Christianity won because
our sense of time itself isJesus plus one. Yeah, Jesus plus
(14:44):
two.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuer (14:47):
Exactly.
But the thing is, we also knowwhen it became common and not
just the church, because Pope,Pope Gregory the 13th,
introduced it in 1582.
That fucking guy...
Smack dab, in that weird moment.
Weird historians like me wouldlabel early modernity, which is
also smack dab at the start ofEuropean colonialism, civilizing
(15:08):
missions and the transatlanticslave trade. We call our
calendar Gregorian because theliteral Pope Gregory decided on
this calendar. And that decisionis straight up located in a
framework of expansion,imperialism, Race Theory and
religious oppression.
Megan Goodwin (15:29):
Yep. Yeah. I mean, this all fits, right? If
you're going to be
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (15:33):
like it does, like they just like
yes, it tracks
Megan Goodwin (15:36):
It should track.
Like, you're going to be aninstitution that divides the
entire world in like dibs.
That's, dibs is it. It's like,hey, Spain and Portugal. Go
nuts. I joke. Sure, sure. Thisthis tracks to be true about
Catholicism, I as aninstitution, but also with the
(15:57):
way that Catholic small-cCatholic works in the world,
right. "Small c-catholicism"Catholic means universal or all
encompassing. It is obviously anargument about the correctness
of Christianity and Catholicismspecifically, although,
particularly at this time, butalso in most of the times
Catholics, don't superacknowledge that other
(16:19):
Christianity's are happeningbecause they kind of think that
everybody else is kidding. So.
So the Gregorian calendar, whichis our calendar, starts from the
very beginning, in an assumptionabout whose years, whose time is
even valid. Even if the move tothe Gregorian calendar from the
Julian one was just aboutstandardizing time, allegedly,
and bringing more people intoagreement? Sure, with an eye
(16:42):
toward, frankly, the science ofhow long an actual year is. And
I think you already mentionedthis, but it's not exact, which
is how we got leap years. Yeah,believe it to imperialism to be
like this is the truth, kind of,but don't ask me questions and
just add a little bit every
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (17:03):
Yeah, I mean, and this wasn't adopted
year.
overnight by everyone, right?
It's not like Pope Gregory islike, "everyone on this
calendar". And everyone's like,"Yes, sir". At first, it was
Catholic led countries thatadopt this calendar, and later
Protestant ones and EasternOrthodox ones. And I'm thinking
of Europe here. And, of course,the colonies and imperialized
(17:26):
States after that, right,because it's not long after the
1580s that we start to see thelike alleged New World, Africa
and Asia be divvied up by theseexact nations. Yep. So my point
here is that this standardizedcalendar gets standardized right
at the historical moment where"standards" become a thing ie
(17:48):
modernity, but also whenChristian Europeans are running
around the world fucking shitup. However, Megan, and this is
where my grump comes in. Becausecalendar has never been the only
calendar it has not only everbeen the year of someone else's
Lord, and for many folks, eventhose of us who use this
(18:08):
calendar and think in time likethis, it is not the only or
exclusive way that weexperienced dates, years, months
and time.
Megan Goodwin (18:24):
All right. Okay.
All right. All right. I loveyou. And of course, you have
made a list of years and ways ofmeasuring time, and it is
delightfully long. So I'm justI'm just gonna read you some of
these this is great. At the timeof our recording kinds of of
year measuring (18:40):
Assyrian
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (18:44):
Let's play, "what year is it?"
Megan Goodwin (18:50):
All of them apparently at the same time. So
if we were using an Assyriancalendar, it would be the year
6771 Jewish or Hebrew calendars5783, Chinese calendar 4720,
Buddhist 2563, Islamic 1443Persian 1400. And I think it's
2022 here, but at this point,I'm honestly not really sure.
(19:13):
And I'm going back to time isfake again. Okay, I'm going to
assume that you know stuff aboutthis because you're smart. And
also you made the list. But whyis the Buddhist measurement of
time separate from Chinesemeasurements of time? I know
there are Chinese Buddhists Iassume there's a Confucianism in
there somewhere. Do Hindus notcare about time numbers? What
(19:38):
how? How is there no South Asiain here, you love it best of
all.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (19:41):
So without going into too much
detail. And without saying that,quite frankly, there are so many
calendars that in the doing ofthe research for this bit. I was
like, oh boy, there's too manycalendars. Even for me who
thought joke was "hey look howmany calendars"
Megan Goodwin (19:59):
hey, well welcome No doubt.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (20:02):
So anyway, the reason I didn't
include Hindus is because theHindu eras are cyclical. So
there's a semi mostly definitelyBrahmanical understanding that
time counts up and down from thelast age, the worst age,
otherwise known as the KaliYuga. Hmm. So to be honest, I
didn't include a Hindu year,because there are more important
(20:22):
things happening about SouthAsian calendars. And the year is
only one part of it. The moreimportant thing about South
Asian calendars is that there'sso goddamn many of them, because
South Asia has been both Unitedand not. So it wasn't until
there needed to be one calendarnationally that the Indian
national calendar was adopted,and then reformed, all these
(20:45):
other calendars from all overSouth Asia. So there's like a
Tamil calendar, a Malioncalendar of Bengali calendar I
could go on. So this internaldiversity seems like a more
interesting point than trying toexplain that. The Kali Yuga is
the fourth era. And it's theworst era and it counts up and
down. So like it counts fromzero and goes forward, like
0123. But also when it gets toits end time, it just kind of
(21:08):
starts over again. So Hindusmight be in a, in a year that
like starts with a 19. But theirtime counts back like 6000 years
because of these cycles, reallymore like 10s of 1000s of years
because of these cycles.
Megan Goodwin (21:24):
I like this much better. This makes way more
sense to me, for me, like I feelcomforted. It feels a little bit
like time and an MC Escherpainting
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (21:31):
does it like 100% That's how I
describe it when I teach it. ButI also want people to hear that
this internal diversity alsoexists in these allegedly like
places that seem the same, butthey only seem the same.
Because?
Megan Goodwin (21:45):
imperialism, I knew this I got it, hooray.
Okay. Wow. So things like IndianStandard Time existing is a way
bigger, complicated thing that Irealized, huh?
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (21:58):
Yeah, like as like a brief primary
source. I have a friend andcolleague that I've known since
the early aughts, whose familyowns a jewelry store, and they
always send me a calendar, youknow, it's like one of these
advertising calendars you getfrom like your realtor or
something or like the bank, andit's a jewelry calendar, it has
all the months but the month,okay, so it's a Gregorian
(22:19):
calendar with a Hindu calendaroverlaid, but the jewelry store
is in Chennai, a city inTamilnad, and the Tamil calendar
is also on it. So on the righthand top, like the right top
corner of each box, is likeMarch 123. Then on the left
hand, top, it will be in Hindi,like the Indian national
(22:42):
calendar in Hindi with you know,like all the Holiday National
Holiday Indian nationalholidays, but also like Hindu
holidays that are recognizedacross and then on the bottom
right hand side is the Tamilmonth and date and those
regional specific holidays orTamil, like almost Tamil
nationals, but not reallynationalist. I'm not gonna get
into it, holiday. So it's likethree calendars in one. And that
(23:04):
goes next to my radical Jewishcalendar, which is what it
sounds like. It's a calendarmade by radical Jews that you
send the money and they send youa calendar, and it's great. And
that has like the Gregoriancalendar, and then the Hebrew
months and the Hebrew dates, andit's very confusing, and my
children really love thesecalendars. Because what day is
it? What month is it? There arefive options right here?
Megan Goodwin (23:26):
Okay, so this is better to me. I like the system
entirely better good. To alladmit time is fake. Evne though,
it controls our lives. And solet's just call it a bunch of
things. This Yes, this is
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (23:38):
your takeaway from there are five
real things happening here, orfour real things happening here
is it's all fake. Instead ofthere are four real options. No,
Megan Goodwin (23:47):
no options are real. Okay, so to sum up, it is
2022 for Christians becausethey're winning. Since that is
the number of years Christiansagree since Jesus their literal
God was born. Except pausebecause not even Christians
agree that anymore. I know thatminus five. None of this works.
Everything is made up. And yet,and yet. I still have to show up
(24:12):
for things on time. Rude.
Anyway. All right. So we'recalling this now the common era
because of Pope Gregory makingit standard just as imperial
expansion started happening. Sowhich is to say that the quote
unquote, whole world talks aboutFebruary or November in 2022 on
a standard calendar, and that isinherently Christian
imperialist.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (24:34):
So stop asking me why I'm mad about
it. You know the answer.
Megan Goodwin (24:38):
The answer is imperialism. And the moves
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (24:41):
Yes.
But okay, aside from just theyear of someone else's Lord, I
want to underline that for you,the most important thing I know
in managing your calendar isthat I have to keep explaining
that there are real worldeffects like if you are late,
people might be grumpy orFebruary's real how else we know
it's your birthday month? Yeah,
Megan Goodwin (25:03):
that's important.
That part is real. My birthdayis real even if time is fake.
Yeah. So
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (25:07):
let's talk about real world effects.
Yeah, okay. Sure.
Megan Goodwin (25:10):
So we talked about school calendars. And we
talked about sports teamsbecause of course we did. And we
talked about sports teams notpaying attention to school
calendars. We talked about howeasy it is to run your meetings
and classrooms and book clubswhile thinking about religious
difference because just get somemore calendars. And and and yet,
despite the fact that we havebeen talking about all of these
things for A) As long as I'veknown you and be three years on
(25:33):
the pod now, I definitely triedto schedule you for Rosh
Hashanah like a week ago.
Because Because imperialismbecause my calendar didn't say
it was Rosh Hashana, despite meknowing you talking to you true
AdWords, somewhere between 15and 75 times every single
goddamn day. Ah, can we run apodcast on religious literacy?
(25:55):
And so still, my bad
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (26:03):
way to oppress me, Megan. But also
listen, we all make mistakes.
This is actually the violenceinherent in the system. Even
someone like you who thinksabout religion all the time, who
talks to me 75 times a day. Andthat's conservative as an
estimate. You have to take extrasteps to think about being
accommodating to me, which meansthat there's a barrier for
(26:27):
access for those of us who needothers to do more, I inherently
need you to take that extra stepin order to see me. And if you
haven't taken that extra step, Ibecome invisible, or I have to
advocate for myself and say,Please stop oppressing me,
comma, my best friend.
Megan Goodwin (26:48):
What if you didn't do violence to me on my
calendar? Thanks. Hey, um, funquestion. Are you ever not going
to be mad about this? No. I knewthat.
Ilyse Morgenstein F (26:56):
Absolutely.
Not. I mean, look, I'munderstanding I, I often and I
fully admit this nerds hand onheart, I have to check the
internet several times before Iknow which day is a holiday for
my own religion, depending onthe digital platform, because
Because depending on the digitalplatform, we don't even agree on
how to how to talk about Jewishholidays, some places let's
Jewish holidays, on the firstfull day of that, but just to
(27:19):
make time more frustrating. Andbecause Jews like to be edgy.
Our day ends and starts atsunset, not midnight, which Yep,
again, to me makes a lot ofsense. Yeah. But when you're
quickly looking at a calendar,and it says Yom Kippur is on a
Monday, for example, you have todo American eyes. Or maybe if I
(27:39):
could push it maybe evendecolonize your brain a little
bit and think, Okay, it's listedfor Monday, which really means
the evening prior. So now Igotta go back in and block my
calendar for Sunday sunsetthrough Monday sunset, in order
to make sure that no one throwsa meeting on my calendar for
like 5:30 The day before YomKippur, because they were
(28:03):
looking at a calendar. And theynoticed that the day after was
Yom Kippur war, so 5:30 would befine. And that is literally the
story of how the faculty senatealmost got scheduled on Yom
Kippur, but because Dr.
Borchert, former guest is thepresident of Faculty Senate. He
said, What is the real YomKippur? So I don't schedule this
meeting. But not everybody has aJew in their pocket to be like,
(28:26):
I know when the real Yom Kippuris.
Megan Goodwin (28:28):
not pocket Jew
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuers (28:30):
Anyway, we've learned
Megan Goodwin (28:32):
I'm sorry, but that's, that is going to be the
name of our first app.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (28:37):
And it's just me being like, Yo,
motherfucker, fucking YomKippur. Just blasphemous. Yeah,
Megan Goodwin (28:43):
yeah
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (28:44):
have you called your mother? Yes,
yes. Anyway, we've learned howto be in the world using time
the way "we" use it. So I alsohave to deprogram the like,
Monday Yom Kippur does not meanMonday Yom Kippur, it means the
day before or the eveningbefore. So for Jewish folks and
(29:07):
Muslim folks and for so so manyothers who juggle these multiple
times, years, months, or evenhow we conceive of the day. To
me, one of the reasons I'm nevernot gonna be mad about it, it's
just another way minoritizedpeople have to account for
difference. And again, Goodwin Iwant to make sure that the
podcast listeners hear me saythat I'm not mad at you for
flubbing a holiday this onetime.
Megan Goodwin (29:29):
Thanks, friend.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (29:30):
In fact, I'm grateful that the
second I was like, Oh, shit,it's Rashanna. You said Fuck,
I'll fix it. You didn't make medo that labor. You didn't make
me apologize to the otherperson. We were scheduling for
having a non normative need or areligious accommodation. You
made the mistake. You fixed it.
That is excellent solidaritywork, even if it wasn't perfect,
because guess what?
Megan Goodwin (29:51):
Perfect. Yeah, or you know who's it's Maya Angelou
right who said that, "when youknow better thenn you do
better". So just trying to knowbetter and then do better. Yeah,
yeah. Calendars are also weirdfor witches because we do this
Wheel of the Year thing, wheresome of the dates are fixed in
(30:12):
the Gregorian calendar, and thensome of them are Solstices or
equinoxes. But also if you'repracticing with other people,
then you have to account forother people's schedules, many
of whom don't get the days offfor those holidays. So you're
kind of approximating anastronomical event, but also
close to a weekend and when canpeople make casseroles? So
(30:35):
anyway, time is fake.
One of the questions we got uptop is, is it possible to have
non imperialist calendars likeyou're talking about
decolonizing your brain byrethinking even what a day is?
Oh, can we do calendars outsideimperialism? I feel like
(30:57):
probably not. Right. Because?
Well, I mean, standardizing timeis one of the ways that a
globalized world managesfunctioning, like flights and
business practices, right. Andalso, this is already inside
legacies of imperialism. But Iguess I'm curious if we can aim
(31:17):
for plurality and flexibilityrather than just allowing
capitalism and trade to dictatehow we use our time.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (31:28):
Here, here? And that seems like
enough, right?
Megan Goodwin (31:31):
I think so. That, you know, so let's take her
home.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fue (31:36):
Calendars are not neutral. They can't be.
They are about establishing oneway of thinking about the world.
And we focused on Christianimperialism, because Hi, you've
met me, but ordering things,whether it's time, or anything
else is never neutral. Neverknow, in any scenario, it is
also just Christian imperialismout loud. Literally, Jesus plus
(31:59):
one minus five for somebody'scalendar, we can't escape that
being Christian imperialism, Ijust meant like, even if you are
making a list of categories inyour like, like if you're
ordering something in yourrefrigerator, like how you
choose to set that refrigeratorup, has a politic to it, even if
you are not aware of it, or evenif it doesn't affect anybody
else, right? Like, where we putthe milk so that the kids can
(32:21):
reach it is a choice toprioritize our children's
accessibility to the milk.
That's a political choice. Iwant my kids to have access to
the milk. I've ordered myrefrigerator in that way. So
ordering things is neverneutral. Ordering time is not
neutral under any system. Butthe calendar that we use, which
is Jesus plus one is Christianimperialism, period. The end?
Yes, correct. Yes. All of that,which means that the calendar
(32:43):
you're using nerds isn't neutralbecause the whole world has been
forced some places consensuallyin other places not to use this
calendar.
Megan Goodwin (32:54):
I am definitely never using a calendar
consensually just so that we'reclear like this is always well
aware. I'm well aware. No, youknow, I just need the world to
know and want the world to knowthat when we say like whose
labor is it calendar label foryou is my labor. It's like
begging I know you need to behere right now. Have you left?
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (33:11):
And I love you so much. I'm willing to
do that work.
Megan Goodwin (33:13):
I know. I know.
And it feels like love, even asit also feels like oppression.
I'm sorry, that I'm oppressingyou. I don't think you're
oppressing me. You're justforcing me to live in this
oppressive system so that I canlike go places and do things.
And I appreciate you. Thanks.
Yeah,
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (33:31):
your calendar is not neutral, your
fridge might not be neutralhaving meetings after business
hour is not neutral workingthrough your lunch is not
neutral. How we use our time isnever neutral, how we order our
time is never neutral and howour time has been ordered for us
on a calendar certainly what'snot and is not now neutral so
nerds I'll never not be madabout it. shits imperialist.
Megan Goodwin (33:57):
Perfection. Hey, don't pack up your stuff yet
know. You've got homeworkhomework. It's, it's time in
fact.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (34:08):
We have a non neutral list of
assignments for you today. SoMegan, I'm just going to read
through these I threw togethermy top four or five articles
that I had in my bibliographiesthat I keep on my computer about
time. These are not exhaustive.
These are things I liked. SoVanessa Ogle has one called the
global transformation of time1870 to 1950 with Harvard
University Press in 2015.
(34:32):
There's also a podcast on thaton the new books network that
I'll link everybody to in theshow notes. Nice. See, Philip
Nothaft has an article calledduking it out in the arena of
time chronology in the ChristianJewish encounter 1100 to 1600 in
this journal called "medievalencounters, Jewish Christian and
Muslim culture and Confluenceand dialogue". It's an open
(34:54):
access journal
Megan Goodwin (34:56):
spoilers, the Christians when do they do but
it's a really
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (34:59):
great honor Um, I Liked this article
because it was about likedebates and stuff Ehsaan Kashvi
has an article called "Thepolitics of calendar state
appropriations of the contestedIranian past", which as you
might hear nerds in the title,this is about Iran, which uses
its own calendar, even thoughmost most Iranians are Muslim.
And so there's also thatcalendar operating side by side,
(35:22):
but Persians have kept their owncalendar. So that's an
interesting one. And thenthere's an oldie but a goodie,
this is I think, I read this incollege, Susan drecker, brown,
quote, The politics ofcalendars, rural, simple, super
publicly accessible. It's juston the internet. And it's in an
anthropology journal, and it'sall just from 1989. But it lays
(35:42):
out the issues that we've talkedabout. Now for practical
matters. I will also link folksto one or two interfaith
calendars that you can load ontoyour phones handout in your
schools. Nothing made me happiermy kids first first my elder and
now my younger had the samekindergarten teacher who sent me
an email on like the second dayof school being like, I thought
(36:02):
of you when I handed out aninterfaith calendar to every
member of the staff this yearbecause I'm a podcast listener,
and I was like, ah, mazing soprops to Rachel Barone for doing
the hard work.
Megan Goodwin (36:13):
Yes, Miss Barone, we love her.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (36:17):
Shout out to Evie Wolfe, Rachel Zieff
and Juliana Finch to the KI101team whose work makes this pod
accessible and thereforeawesome, listenable,
socialmedia-able, calendar-ableand other things for which we
are grateful.
Megan Goodwin (36:28):
You can find Meghan that's me on Twitter
pretty much anytime at @mpgPhDand Ilyse @profirm or the show
at keepingit_101. Find thewebsite at keepingit101.com Find
us on Insta and now the tiktoksDrop us a rating or review in
your pod catcher of choice. Andwith that, peace out nerds do
(36:51):
your homework it's on thesyllabus.
Unknown (37:12):
20 million years ago, an ape like creature inhabited
the earth.
(37:40):
The ape stood and became man
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