Newsletter
We encourage all researchers interested in egodocuments and egodocumentality to join our newsletter. This initiative aims to spread information about our research across Europe and possibly worldwide. The newsletter will be e-mailed once a month (or as needed). Each network member can send us information about their activities, ideas, new publications, projects, and conferences that we will include in the letter.
We hope that the egodocumental network will improve communication between researchers and give new opportunities to start international cooperation.
If you are interested in receiving our newsletter or want to publish some information, please contact us via e-mail at egodocuments@umk.pl. Information to resend should be in English.
Newsletter 5/2024
We are happy to present you with the newest newsletter, in which we will share the latest developments in research and academic life in the field of egodocuments.
Network News
International Egodocumental Network Seminar 2/2024
New date for the seminar is 7 January 2025, 17:00 Central European Time (Amsterdam, Warsaw). Speaker: Prof. Sigurður Gylfi Magnússon (University of Iceland)
The Cultural Existance of Few Barefoot Historians in the Icelandic Peasant Society in the 19th Century: Biography, Egodocuments and Microhistory
In his previous work Sigurður Gylfi Magnússon established a theoretical framework called ‘the Singularization of History’ by criticizing the way social, cultural and microhistorians have practiced their scholarship in the last two or three decades. He payed particular attention to one element common to the theoretical orientations of all microhistorians, viz. the connections between micro and macro. Microhistorians of all persuasions emphasize the importance of placing small units of research within larger contexts. He refutes this principle and show its inherent contradictions. The challenge of this paper will be to consider how this research focus can be used when egodocuments are analysed, and whether it excludes the global perspective from historical inquiry with a special attention on the culture of emotions.
Sigurður Gylfi Magnússon is currently Professor of Cultural History and chair of the Center for Microhistorical Research. He has written thirty books and numerous articles published in Iceland and abroad. His latest books in English are: Wasteland with Words. A Social History of Iceland (London: Reaktion Books, 2010); What is Microhistory? Theory and Practice (London: Routledge, 2013) co-authored with István M. Szijártó; Minor Knowledge and Microhistory (London: Routledge, 2017), co-authored with Davíð Ólafsson; Emotional Experience and Microhistory (London, Routledge, 2020); Archive, Slow Ideology and Egodocuments as Microhistorical Autobiography: Potential History (London: Routledge, 2021), and finally Autobiographical Traditions and Egodocuments (London: Bloomsbury, 2023). Sigurður Gylfi is the founder and one of three editors of a book series named: “The Anthology of Icelandic Popular Culture” (Sýnisbók íslenskrar alþýðumenningar) which has so far published thirty-two books, mostly on topics of egodocuments and everyday-life history. He is also co-editor with István M. Szijártó of a new international book series, Microhistories, published by Routledge.
Programme:
17:00-17:40 Lecture
17:40-18:00 Discussion
18:00-18:30 Network meeting
If you are interested in participating in the seminar, write to us.
International Egodocumental Network (IEN) News
- The 1st International Egodocumental Network Conference which will take place on 24-26 April 2025 in Vilnius has received a very large number of proposals. Notes of acceptance were sent on Friday. We are looking forward to meeting some of you in person in the spring coming year for three busy and productive days
- 1st Network Seminar of 2025 will take place in May. More details to follow
- We encourage you to share information about the Network with your colleagues who may be interested in our work
- We remind you of two publication avenues for egodocumental research in Brill series Egodocuments and History, and in Studies in the History of Privacy (which allows also for a smaller publications in the form of minigraphs of 30-60,000 words).
Information about network members
A gentle reminder to those who want to publish their research profile on the Network’s website to facilitate communication and interconnection – please fill out the attached form and send it back to us. It will also be published on https://egodocuments.umk.pl/. The template in the attachment includes last and first name, academic title and position, affiliation, period of interest, keywords, remarks, and e-mail. It also comprises the GDPR statement, which must be completed in order to publish the information online. If you are interested in publishing your profile on our website, please send us back a signed scan of the template to e-mail: egodocuments@umk.pl.
Other News
Conference announcement
On 7, 8 and 9 May 2025 a major family history conference will be held in Albacete (Spain). A session in Axis 1 of the conference ("Sources, methods and proposals for methodological renewal. Between interdisciplinarity and artificial intelligence") will be devoted to personal writings. The call for proposals can be found below. The session is open and all proposals are welcome on all types of personal writings from the late Middle Ages to the 19th century. The languages of the conference, and the session, are English, French, Castilian, Portuguese and Italian, allowing for a wide exchange of ideas. The conference website and all the necessary information are at the following address: https://eventos.uclm.es/118494/detail/congreso-internacional-familias-y-cambio-historico-dinamicas-relacionales-y-transformaciones-social.html. You also may write directly to francois-joseph.ruggiu@sorbonne-universite.fr.
A major source in history of family : personal writings from the Middle Age to the 19th century.
Personal writings (egodocuments, Selbstzeugnisse, écrits du for privé…) form a group of historical documents (including diaries, diaries, memoirs, autobiographies, correspondence, etc.) whose number has grown steadily during the early modern and modern periods. Whether they are written immediately or retrospectively, they reveal the social world in which evolved the people who wrote them. They bear witness to conceptions of the family, family structures and networks, demographic behaviours, modes of family relationships, types of inheritances immaterial transmission, ordinary family practices, whether based on solidarity or conflicts, or a complex set of feelings, emotions and affects. Despite a number of pioneering studies, personal writings still under-used as a way of studying the family. The aim of this session is therefore to encourage people to read of these texts from the point of view of the history of the family, or families, or individuals within family or kinship. The session is open to all themes and methodological approaches without restriction of period or place. Studies of a single text will be accepted as well as studies based on a series of several texts. Contributions on colonial spaces and non-European personal writings will be particularly welcome.
Publications:
We want to inform you about publication of our colleague Katrin Sippel: Obrigado, tausendfach!” Portugal – a country of transit through the eyes of Austrian refugees. Florian Krobb and Caitriona Leahy (Eds.): Austrian Travel Writing, Austrian Studies 31, Cambridge: MHRA, 2023, pp. 35-52, link: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/919430
As always, we look forward to your information about any publication, grant, conference, workshop, search for collaborators, or any other information or request you would like to share with the network members. Please send us a description (in English) and materials to egodocuments@umk.pl. We will be pleased to share them with the network.
Best wishes,
Egodocumental Research Group/International Egodocumental Network