Full Description
The Emancipation of Writing is the first study of writing in its connection to bureaucracy, citizenship, and the state in Germany. Stitching together micro- and macro-level analysis, it reconstructs the vibrant, textually saturated civic culture of the German southwest in the aftermath of the French Revolution and Napoleon's invasions. Ian F. McNeely reveals that Germany's notoriously oppressive bureaucracy, when viewed through the writing practices that were its lifeblood, could also function as a site of citizenship. Citizens, acting under the mediation of powerful local scribes, practiced their freedoms in written engagements with the state. Their communications laid the basis for civil society, showing how social networks commonly associated with the free market, the free press, and the voluntary association could also take root in powerful state institutions.
Contents
Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction PART I OFFICIAL POWER AND THE PAPER TRAIL Chapter 1 The civic landscape Political culture Social geography Mediating institutions Chapter 2 The tutelage of the scribes The formality of daily life Manipulations of authority Crisis in the writing trades Chapter 3 The Black Forest Cahier Political ventriloquism Networks of collegiality Provincials and cosmopolitans A breach of protocol Chapter 4 Constitutional fetishism Litigating local conflict Democratization by codification Heinrich Bolley v. the king Epilogue PART II INSCRIBING A SPACE OF FREEDOM Chapter 5 Transcending "textual serfdom" Administrative colonization Tutelage on a new terrain The reconstitution of politics Chapter 6 Reading, writing, and reform Edicts: the letter of the law Sociography and enforcement Knowledge entrepreneurs Chapter 7 Cataloging the social world Statistical topography Patriotic science Encyclopedism as local passion Chapter 8 The intelligence gazettes Popular Enlightenment Reaching the citizenry The market for information Conclusion Abbreviations Glossary Sources Notes
