Lee Ann and I tried to give you all many choices regarding the prompt so that you could pursue whatever strikes your fancy. Feel free to pick and choose from the selection of suggestions below or spin off in your own direction!
Happy posting!
Lee Ann & Kendra
In the book What Is Microhistory? : Theory and Practice, Sigurour Magnusson defines microhistory as “the intensive historical investigation of a relatively well defined smaller object, most often a single event, or “a village community, a group of families, even an individual person”. He also adds two other features to the definition – that micro-historians study small objects in order to answer “great historical questions” and also determine the stress put on agency of the key actors. (Magnusson, pg 5).
1. What makes this a good example of a microhistory? How does this narrative represent social, economic, and political issues and changes which are prevalent at this point in American History beyond Bizarrre? What is the “great historical question” that Kiernan may be trying to answer and what historiographical techniques or methodologies does Kierner use successfully to tell the narrative?
2. How does Kierner's scholarship "speak to" other historians we have read such as Bloch and Foucault and related topics we have discussed such as power, social systems, class, race, agency of change, who has the power to judge, or language? Or consider Scott, Meyerowitz, and Ditz and issues such as gendered language, identity anxiety, honor, reputation, and status? Are there any silences, intentional or unintentional created by Kierner in the narrative?
3. What causes historical change for Kierner? How does conflict, race, class, status, gender, language, and the construction of identity through public opinion play a role in historical change? or do they?
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