Emotional Experience and Microhistory

Sigurður Gylfi Magnússon is Professor of Cultural History and chair of the Department of History and Philosophy at the University of Iceland. He is also chair of the Center for Microhistorical Research. His latest books in English are What is Microhistory? Theory and Practice (2013) co-authored with István M. Szijártó, and Minor Knowledge and Microhistory (2017), co-authored with Davíð Ólafsson. He is the founder and an editor of the book series "The Anthology of Icelandic Popular Culture" (Sýnisbók íslenskrar alþýðumenningar) and also co-editor with István M. Szijártó of the series, Microhistories, published by Routledge.

• Part I The Normal exceptions and Stories from the People 1. Creating a Story 2. Real People and Fictional Ones 3. The Individual and Microhistory 4. The Normal Exception 5. The Book Part II Emotional Communities in the Life and Death of Magnús Hj. Magnússon 1. In Hostile Waters 2. A Harsh Life on the Farm of Hestur 3. Courtship 4. Matters of Life and Death 5. Matthildur’s Death and the Poets 6. Saved by the Salvation Army? 7. Rape: Wrongful Ruling? 8. The High Court 9. Two Contrasting Arguments – New Sources 10. Days of Hope and Fear 11. Eternal Life Part III In the Company of Few 1. A Pointillist Portrait of a Person 2. The Conceptual Framework of Sex and Sexuality 3. Microhistory, Material Culture and Death 4. Fiction and Microhistory

‘This discussion by Sigurður Gylfi about Magnús Hj. Magnússon is great fun. As I have said, I like the methodology and the material is such that readers all over the world must be impressed, feel sorry for Magnús, admire him and despise him at the same time. I find Sigurður Gylfi's theory that Magnús created a character, a version of himself, that over time has begun to influence his perception, views on the world and how he organized his life, particularly interesting. Thus, the diaries are not only a source of Magnús agency, but an act in itself, a testimony that he was a doer in his own life, "a man who responds to his fate", but this is the unanimous conclusion of Sigurður Gylfi.’ - Ásta Kristín Benediktsdóttir, Saga LIX:1 (2021).