These are my notes from a reading club I’m doing with two friends about [Threads and Traces: True False Fictive](https://www.ucpress.edu/books/threads-and-traces/paper) by Carlo Ginzburg (2012). # Chapter 1 (08/05/2025) Reading group meeting, [[2025-05-07 ]] Chapter 1: “Description and Citation” **“Truth” as persuasive verisimilitude** - In ancient Greece, “truth” was understood primarily in terms of **persuasion**, not strict factual accuracy. - Rhetorical citations appeared without quotation marks, blending invention and memory to produce an **“effect of reality.”** - Fictional elements were deliberately woven into a truthful narrative to reinforce credibility. **Historians vs. Antiquarians** - **Historians** valued proximity to power (court eyewitnesses, oral testimony) and cited earlier writers to build a continuous written historiography. - **Antiquarians** prioritized physical artifacts, inscriptions, and nonliterary traces, arguing these were less tainted by myth or superstition. - In the mid-17th century, antiquarians began to systematically analyze primary sources, giving priority to non-literary evidence (coins, inscriptions, etc.) as more reliable. Arnaldo Momigliano highlighted the importance of these antiquarians' contributions to modern historiography. - Debates persisted over whether **annals**—mere registers without explanatory intent—qualified as genuine “history.” **Stylistic oppositions and functions** - Both poets and historians employed **enargeia** (vivid description) to evoke reality, but for different ends: - The historian used enargeia to **explain specific events** convincingly. - The poet used it to convey **universal truths** about human nature. - The chapter contrasts **literary** (textual) versus **extratextual** (artifactual) evidence. - Because enargeia evokes “ocular demonstration,” describing events so vividly that they seem to unfold before the reader’s eyes, ancient rhetoricians treated it as a form of proof or evidence in argumentation. Clearness, vividness and evidence are all variations on the old rhetorical term, "enargeia" highlighting how persuasive description functioned as its own kind of verification. **Translation of key concepts** - **Enargeia** has been rendered variously as “vivid description,” “vividness,” or “effect of reality.” - Related concept: **ekphrasis** (“descriptions of place”). - “If enargeia was the purpose of the ekphrasis, truth was the result of enargeia.” (p. 27) - “One can imagine a sequence: historical narration — description — vividness — truth. The difference between our concept of history and that of the ancients could be summed up here.” (p. 28) **Contemporary parallels and reflections** - In epistemic debates about "evidence-based public policy" in Portuguese, the term "_evidência_" is often used, but risks overstating certainty, while "indícios" better preserves the provisional, suggestive nature of knowledge. In English, "indícios" can be rendered as "indications," which preserves neutrality and openness... subtleties that "evidência," used as a perfect translation of "evidence," simply cannot convey. This rhetorical nuance reverberates in contemporary discussions of evidence-based policy, where seemingly objective research and data (far from guaranteeing certainty) can be selectively framed and imbued with implicit values. - Skepticism about narrators echoes the questioning of Bentinho's reliability in _[[Dom Casmurro]]_. - The [Bible Project](https://bibleproject.com/) argues that biblical texts combine literary self-reflection with poetic structure rather than pure factual reportage. - Benjamin Labatut's [When We Cease to Understand the World](https://www.amazon.de/-/en/When-We-Cease-Understand-World/dp/1782276122) (2020), a hybrid prose that mixes documented events with invented narrative, mirrors Ginzburg's analysis of fact and fiction. - Contemporary battles over "fake news" and AI-generated media suggest a looming "semantic apocalypse" ([cf. Alexander Scott](https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/the-colors-of-her-coat)) in which persuasive online veracity challenges in-person authenticity. **Topics for future exploration** - The relationship between modern “fake news” and AI–generated content. - The political role of “evidence” and its (bad) translation to the contemporary discussions around "evidence based-policy". # Chapter 2 (29/05/2025) Reading group meeting, [[2025-05-29]] Chapter 2: “The conversion of the Jews of Minorca (A.D. 417 - 418)" **The letter from bishop Severus** - The chapter analyzes the _Epistula Severi_, a 5th-century letter recounting the mass conversion of Jews in Minorca. - According to Severus, the conversion took place peacefully, following the arrival of **relics of Saint Stephen** on the island. The event is narrated in a **prophetic tone**, as if divinely orchestrated. - Despite converting to Christianity, the Jews retained a **distinct communal status**, legitimized by their association with a revered saint—suggesting a negotiated, if not entirely voluntary, form of inclusion. **The historiographical controversy** There is deep historiographical debate surrounding the letter’s **authenticity**, **intent**, and **interpretive framing**. - Arguments against authenticity: - The letter may be a **later forgery**, dating possibly to the 7th century. - Critics (e.g. Blumenkranz, du Mesnil) highlight: - Use of _hagiographic tropes_ typical of medieval miracle literature. - Language more consistent with **later anti-Jewish polemics** than early 5th-century Roman norms. - An ideologically convenient structure that seems crafted to legitimize Christian dominance retroactively. - Arguments for authenticity: - Scholars like **Scott Bradbury** defend its 5th-century origin based on: - **Precise dating** aligned with historical calendars (e.g. arrival on 2 Feb. 418). - **Intertextual citations** in other early texts (e.g. _De Miraculis Sancti Stephani_). - **Stylistic coherence** with Severus’s known theological rhetoric. - Even if authentic, the letter may be less a neutral report than a piece of **episcopal propaganda**, narratively shaped to serve doctrinal and communal aims. **Voluntary or coerced? Interpreting the narrative** - Traditional ecclesiastical readings interpret the conversion as a **divine triumph**—a voluntary shift sparked by spiritual awe. - Contemporary scholars (e.g. Rutgers, Cohen, Chazan) read the account critically: - **Synagogue burnings**, **mob involvement**, and **social pressure** suggest coercion masked by theological narrative. - The letter may sanitize violence and reframe domination as piety. - However, some scholars warn against **anachronistic interpretations**. Using terms like _pogrom_ or _purge_, they argue, imposes **modern categories of antisemitism** onto a much earlier and structurally different moment in Jewish–Christian relations. - **Peter Brown**, in _The Cult of the Saints_, suggests an alternative reading: under the **patronage of Saint Stephen**, the converted Jews were not erased, but **integrated (distinctly, yet visibly) into the Christian community** of Minorca. - Rather than a purge, this may represent a form of **differentiated inclusion**, shaped by the religious and political logics of late antiquity. **Truth, context and the interpretive framework** - This chapter surfaces core questions about **historical truth**: - What makes a document “real”? - What kind of evidence counts: material, stylistic, intertextual? - Ginzburg stresses the need to navigate between: - **Macro-level frameworks** (interpretive paradigms), - **Micro-level traces** (dates, style, citations), - and the **intermediate-level artifact** (the historical event or document itself). - Interpretation involves _triangulation_, a movement between **context**, **evidence**, and **event** to produce historical meaning. **From historical context to methodological insight** - Historical processes cannot be understood in isolation; they require **contextualization** within broader intellectual, social, and theological paradigms. - A robust **interpretive framework** not only helps situate events but also **shapes what counts as plausible or true**. - Ginzburg shows that **narrative itself** is central to constructing historical truth - it’s not just what happened, but _how_ we tell what happened. **Multiple frameworks and theoretical “polytheism”** - We discussed how academic frameworks can be helpful, but also constraining (especially when they are used for political purposes). - **Marxist traditions** often emphasize structural explanations but may overlook cultural or religious practices. - Similarly, **neo-institutionalists** like Acemoglu may fail to capture local variation or symbolic aspects of institutions. - Eliana: _“I’m polytheistic.”_ One can draw from multiple frameworks—as long as they don’t become incoherent. - The challenge lies in **making explicit** when we use multiple lenses, and in seeking **evidence** that either supports or challenges each one. **Language and epistemic diversity** - Rodolfo cited the Indian historian [[Sanjay Subrahmanyam]] (a polyglot who placed connections between sources and historiographies in different languages, particularly in Persian, Urdu, Telugu, Tamil, Portuguese, English, Spanish, German, French, Italian and Dutch). - Subrahmanyam's multilingualism provides access to sources and **alternative theoretical perspectives**, which is particularly useful for Rodolfo, as he is interested in understanding the commercial dynamics of the Portuguese empire during the colonial period in Brazil. - We discussed how **academic language regimes** shape what is knowable - and how disciplinary silos prevent scholars from engaging across methods and literatures. - Eliana noted how **meso institutions** (as developed by Johan P. Olsen) rarely connect with **policy implementation literature**, despite dealing with overlapping phenomena in workings of public administraiton. - Raises questions about **disciplinary boundaries** and **fragmented vocabularies** across academic fields. - The concept of “meso” appears in different guises but often fails to bridge conversations across political science and public administration. **Closing insight** - Ginzburg's core insight: **narration is not just storytelling**, it is a method for assessing the **authenticity of the past**. - The historian’s task is to **weave macro and micro together** to interpret a meso-level event (like the _Epistula Severi_). - This method doesn’t guarantee truth, but it makes truth **contestable, legible, and revisable**. - Topics for future exploration: - How to reconcile multiple interpretive frameworks in historical analysis. - How disciplinary languages reinforce or block theoretical integration. - When does evidence shift a paradigm, and when is it simply ignored? **Personal sidebar: thinking about executive leadership in government** - This session also brought up a side reflection I want to explore further: - In thinking about **frameworks** and **levels of analysis**, I started drawing parallels with the **executive triangle literature** being developed by the **[[COREX]] network**. Specifically, I’ve been wondering how to make sense of the **public executive** as a figure in these models. There seems to be a gap: the role of the executive isn't always clearly integrated. # Chapter 3 (13/06/2025) Reading group meeting, [[2025-06-13]] Chapter 3: “Montaigne, Cannibals, and Grottoes"