Comments on: Form Over Content

By: Jonathan Dresner

Jonathan Dresner — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 14:43:04 +0000

I tell my students often that songs are one of the best ways for spreading and entrenching ideas, usually when I’m talking about hymns and religious movements. But the 19th and 20th centuries are very powerful evidence of a modern version of that as well.

By: Sayaka

Sayaka — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 21:42:49 +0000

Thank you Chelsea and KML for your comments.
It is easy to dismiss these scribbles but they are interesting, aren’t they? Even when a digital copy in Google Books has a shadow of a hand of the person scanning, it suddenly feels like something human rather than just a resource. :p

By: KML

KML — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 20:28:16 +0000

Really wonderful posting Sayaka. The biology notes reminds me so much of all the captured North Korean docs in the National Archives. Things like classroom notes printed on back of propaganda posters (close to your example), official military deployment orders printed on back of Japanese colonial period blank forms, or more generally, North Korean court sentences printed on Japanese colonial period judicial sentencing forms, with Japanese sometimes crossed out and sometime just left as is.

Thanks so much for posting!

By: Chelsea W.

Chelsea W. — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 02:05:36 +0000

Very interesting. As a book historian I am most intrigued by the note-taking on the leaflet, but the songs too — it reminds me of how documentaries on China’s cultural revolution often feature the interviewees singing revolutionary songs nostalgically.