Minor Knowledge and Microhistory

This book studies everyday writing practices among ordinary people in a poor rural society in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Using the abundance of handwritten material produced, disseminated and consumed some centuries after the advent of print as its research material, the book's focus is on its day-to-day usage and on "minor knowledge," i.e., text matter originating and rooted primarily in the everyday life of the peasantry. The focus is on the history of education and communication in a global perspective. Rather than engaging in comparing different countries or regions, the authors seek to view and study early modern and modern manuscript culture as a transnational (or transregional) practice, giving agency to its ordinary participants and attention to hitherto overlooked source material. Through a microhistorical lens, the authors examine the strength of this aspect of popular culture and try to show it in a wider perspective, as well as asking questions about the importance of this development for the continuity of the literary tradition. The book is an attempt to explain "the nature of the literary culture" in general - how new ideas were transported from one person to another, from community to community, and between regions; essentially, the role of minor knowledge in the development of modern men.

Sigurður Gylfi Magnússon is Professor of Cultural History in the Department of History and Philosophy at the University of Iceland. Davíð Ólafsson is Adjunct Lecturer of Cultural Studies in the School of Humanities, Faculty of Icelandic and Comparative Cultural Studies, at the University of Iceland.

Introduction: Towards a New Model of Fragmented History Part I: Theory and Historiography 1. Historiography of Texts: From Literacy to Literacy Practices Within the Anglo-Saxon School of Thought 2. Scribal Culture in Transnational Perspective 3. Local and Global Perspectives as Platforms for Barefoot Historians: A Microhistorical Approach Part II: The Structure of Culture and Education 4. Setting the Scene Within the Hard Rock of Reality 5. Vernacular Literacy Between Two Campaigns 6. Emotions and Education Part III: Barefoot Historians and Their Everyday Life 7. Childhood, Local Culture and Educational Processes 8. A Quest for a Space - A No-Place: Scribal Communities as Institutional Structures 9. Solidarity with Substance: "History is No Respecter of Persons, It Depicts Both High and Low" 10. Postscript: Cornerstone for a Creative Space in the Nineteenth Century