Dr Jonas Thorup Thomsen

I am a Carlsberg Foundation Visiting Fellow at the University of Oxford. As a cultural historian by training, much of my education as well as my doctoral research was undertaken at Aarhus University and concerned the circulation of books and knowledge in and out of book collections of Danish clergy in the long eighteenth century. Before coming to Oxford, I was a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of History at Lund University where I investigated the last wills and testaments of the Swedish nobility in the late eighteenth century.

Email: jonas.thorupthomsen@voltaire.ox.ac.uk

Research interests

At the Voltaire Foundation, I will return to my research interest in the history of books and the circulation of knowledge in the late Enlightenment. My current project is an investigation of the media revolution and expansion of horizons that took place in Denmark c. 1770–1830. The introduction of newspapers, lending libraries, and the translation and circulation of literature from abroad expanded the world of print by including a larger section of society in an accelerating circulation of knowledge. I am particularly interested in examining which types of media were approached by which groups of people, how they approached them, and what their reading experiences meant for them.

Publications

Articles

(With Martin Dackling), ‘Inheritance Practices and Economic Strategies in the Wills of the Swedish Nobility, 1750–1810’ (forthcoming).

(With Martin Dackling), ‘Emotion as Justification: Swedish Noble Wills in the Late Eighteenth Century’ (forthcoming).

(With Maria Sofie Simonsen), ‘Mellem boghistorie og videnshistorie – Metodiske og teoretiske refleksioner over mødet mellem to fagfelter’ (forthcoming).

 

Chapters in edited volumes

‘Beyond national printing privileges and censorship: transnational knowledge circulation evident in clerical book collections’. In Privileges and Politics, edited by Marius Buning, Alberto José Campillo Pardo, and Andrea Ottone. Scandinavian University Press (forthcoming 2025).

‘Possessed by a Book: Cultural Scripts for Demonic Possession in Early Modern Denmark’. In Literary Citizenship in Scandinavia in the Long Eighteenth Century, edited by Ruth Helmstad, Janicke S. Kaasa, Ellen Krefting, and Aina Nøding. Knowledge and Communication in the Enlightenment World 1. Boydell & Brewer, 2023 (Open Access: https://openaccess.boydellandbrewercms.com/?id=-259363).

‘From Extensive Learned Libraries to Modest Book Collections: Research on Danish Private Book Collections of the Long Eighteenth Century’. In Private Libraries and Their Documentation, 1665–1830: Studying and Interpreting Sources, edited by Rindert Jagersma, Ann-Marie Hansen, and Evelien Chayes. Library of the Written Word – The Handpress World 112. Leiden: Brill, 2023 (Open Access: https://brill.com/edcollbook/title/64633).

Book reviews

‘Prestene forteller – kirkeliv i Norge 1750-1850, by Gina Dahl’, Scandia, 90, 1 (May 2024).

PhD thesis

Jonas Thorup Thomsen, ‘Danish Clergymen and their Book Collections: An Investigation into Clerical Libraries, Book Distribution, and Knowledge Circulation in Denmark, c. 1685-1810’, Aarhus University, 2022.

Selected conference papers and invited presentations

‘Beyond National Printing Privileges and Censorship: Transnational Knowledge Circulation Evident in Clerical Book Collection’, Privileges & Politics: Printing Privileges and the Circulation of Knowledge (1450-1850), Norwegian Institute at Athens, 14–15 December 2023.

‘The Global in the Local: Transnational Knowledge Circulation in Clerical Book Collections in Denmark, 1685–1810’, History of Knowledge Conference, University of Porto, 22–24 November 2023.

‘Bogsamlinger som materialiseret videnscirkulation’ [Book collections as materialised circulation of knowledge], part of round table on the theoretical perspectives of the history of knowledge, 2023-Congress of Danish Historians, Aarhus University, 17–18 August 2023.

‘Confessional knowledge circulation: a profile of Danish pastors’ book collections’, Workshop: Variations of Early Modern Lutheranism in the Danish Territories, Aarhus University, 2 June 2023.

‘Adelens Testamenter: Arvepraksis og ejendomsfordeling i den svenske adel, 1750–1810’ [The Wills of the Nobility: Inheritance Practices and Distribution of Property among the Swedish Nobility, 1750–1810], Det Nordiska Arvsnätverkets (DNA) conference, Bjärsjölagårds Slott, 22–23 May 2023.

‘Danish Clergymen and their Book Collections’. Higher Seminar in Book History, Lund University, 5 October 2022.

‘Danske gejstlige og deres bogsamlinger – præstebiblioteker, bogdistribution og videnscirkulation, ca. 1685–1810’. Workshop: The Protestant Pastors 1550-1850, University of Oslo, 15–16 September 2022.

‘Danske gejstlige og deres bogsamlinger i et videnshistorisk perspektiv’ [Danish Clergymen and their Book Collections in a history of knowledge perspective]. Dansk Videnshistorisk Netværk, 7 September 2022.

‘Danish Clergymen and their Book Collections. An Investigation into Pastoral Enlightenment, Clerical Libraries, and Book Circulation in Denmark, c. 1685–1810’, Approaching the early modern into the modern, Aarhus University, 28 October 2020.

‘Danish Clergymen and their Books: An Investigation of Book Collections and Book Practices of the Danish Clergy, c. 1660–1810’, USTC Seminar, University of St Andrews, 18 October 2019.

‘Possessed by a Book: Cultural Scripts for Demonic Possession’. Literary Citizenship Conference, National Library, Oslo, 25-27 September 2019.