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2023 13:22 RePub, Erasmus University Repository: Egodocuments and history : autobiographical writing in its social context since the M…

WEALTH  HEALTH  GOVERNANCE  CULTURE  SUBMISSIONS 

R.M. Dekker (Rudolf) 2002

Egodocuments and history :

autobiographical writing in its
social context since the Middle
Ages
Dutch historian Jacques Presser used the term “egodocuments” to describe a range of autobiographical
materials, including diaries, memoirs, and wills— the stuff we have been calling “life writing”—to signal its
distance from earlier notions of what constituted autobiography. “Egodocument” sounded awkward to me, its
echo of psychological “ego” presence distracting. More forcefully than Rudolf Dekker’s rather conservative
though scholarly introduction, however, this collection of essays demonstrates the flexibility of the term. The
material the scholars represented here discuss is less diverse than the range of photographs, paintings, film,
and written texts many academics are examining in their exploration of subjectivity, identity, community, and
history. “Egodocuments,” however, make a strong showing. Dekker’s explicit aim is to make Presser’s term
more accepted, arguing that in addition to wide acceptance in the Netherlands, it is being adopted in
Germany and France. His definition of the term follows Philippe Lejeune’s “pacte autobiographique,” but
concedes that the decision to call a text an egodocument “may vary from reader to reader.” Dekker’s wish to
expand the category of writings and texts that can be considered autobiographical may seem unadventurous
to North American and English life-writing theorists. However, his brief account of the Dutch and German
devolution of autobiographical studies is informative and engaging. The individual essays comprise the
strength of this collection: nine pieces, ranging from a study of “Jewish Ethical Wills as Egodocuments”
examining documents from the late twelfth century, to “Online Diaries and Websites on Egodocuments,”
which offers an annotated list of relevant sites of both personal journals and scholarly sources. Usually, in a
gathering of essays, it’s common to find uneven quality. Here, each essay is forcefully argued. Each is firmly
embedded in its historical context, and balances its analysis of particular documents with its scholarly context
and social surroundings in place. The first essay, “Food for Thought: Hieronymous Wolf Grapples with the
Scholarly Habitus,” by Gadi Algazi, in a personable, witty tone analyzes the ethical freight Wolf attaches to his
carefully noted habits of eating and drinking. Early modern scholars will find this and other essays here of
interest: “The Diary of David Beck (1624),” by Jerome Blaak, emphasizes the importance of egodocuments to
the study of the history of reading in that period; and Carolyn Chappell Lougee brings that period and the late
eighteenth century together in “Emigration and Memory: After 1685 and After 1789.” Chappell Lougee takes on
the huge questions of history, memory, and nation Reviews 467 in her treatment of memoirs, using various
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kinds of egodocuments to support her analysis of Huguenots who fled France in 1685, and those who fled the
revolution in 1789. In “The Limitation of Family Tradition in the Barrier Between Public and Private,” which
considers a parallel diary and almanac written by Karoline von Hessen-Darmstadt in multiple volumes
between 1762 and 1772, Helga Meise argues that the “almanac” is a form of egodocument beginning in 1585.
Meise details striking differences between the two documents as Hessen-Darmstadt’s fortunes waver in
France, Russia, Germany, and Prussia. In “Besides Benjamin Franklin: Autobiography in America, 1750–1800,”
Stephen Carl Arch offers an account of three unknown autobiographies that present voices “elided by” critical
tradition dominated by scholars of Rousseau and Franklin. Autobiographies of a working class white man, an
African American freed slave, and an independent white woman suggest, argues Arch, “something of the
ferment that the discourse of selfhood stimulated in the late eighteenth century in America.” Michael Mascuch,
in “John Wesley, Superstar: Periodicity, Celebrity, and the Sensibility of Methodist Society in Wesley’s Journal
(1740–1791),” challenges the dismissal of the literary and historical value of Wesley’s journals. While this essay
may be of more interest to historians of the period and person than to auto/biography scholars, it raises nice
questions about the construction of the celebrity—certainly a timely question for watchers of “I’m a Celebrity,
Get Me Out of Here.” “Autobiography and Family Memory in the Nineteenth Century,” by Arianne Baggerman,
tracks the collection of family archives and materials that she and her colleague Gerard Schulte Norholt have
undertaken in the Netherlands. This short (eleven pages) essay is fascinating, showing the behavior of families
from generation to generation when faced with the documents meant to guide, inform, or inspire them. Some
take on the task of adding to the archive for the next generation, others censor materials pitilessly. Baggerman
concludes that scholars should perhaps be asking not “why people wrote egodocuments in the past . . . but
why they did not throw them away.” Gerard Schulte Norholt’s “Online Diaries and Websites on Egodocuments”
is less an essay than a compilation of sites, and as such is terrifically useful. His sites include Philippe Lejeune’s
diary, a “donttellmama” journal, and academic and scholarly collections of egodocuments, conferences, and
journals (including Biography). This list, in itself, makes the collection worth having. Almost all the essays in
this volume fall far from my own area of study, yet the quality of scholarship and clarity and liveliness of the
writing held my interest. Moreover, I have found using the term “egodocument” increasingly convenient. I
expect Dekker’s aim to find greater acceptance of it will succeed.

Additional Metadata

Keywords Jacques Presser, egodocuments, history, social situation

Publisher Uitgeverij Verloren, Hilversum

ISBN 978-90-6550-439-5

Persistent URL hdl.handle.net/1765/17065

Organisation Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication (ESHCC)

Citation Dekker, R.M. (2002). Egodocuments and history : autobiographical writing in its social context
APA Style  since the Middle Ages. Uitgeverij Verloren, Hilversum. Retrieved from
http://hdl.handle.net/1765/17065

 View at Worldcat

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Additional Files

 FOOD FOR THOUGHT.PDF Final Version , 4mb

 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL READING AND WRITING.PDF Final Version , 4mb

 EMIGRATION AND MEMORY.PDF Final Version , 3mb

 INTRODUCTION.PDF Final Version , 3mb

 WHEN I WAS ALIVE.PDF Final Version , 3mb

 THE LIMITATIONS OF FAMILY TRADITION.PDF Final Version , 3mb

 AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND FAMILY MEMORY.PDF Final Version , 3mb

 BESIDES BENJAMIN FRANKLIN .PDF Final Version , 1mb

 ONLINE DIARIES AND WEBSITES.PDF Final Version , 1mb

 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.PDF Final Version , 1mb

 THE AUTHORS.PDF Final Version , 444kb

 TITEL.PDF Final Version , 83kb

 CONTENTS.PDF Final Version , 59kb

 cover.jpg Cover Image , 2kb

 Google Books Final Version

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