Colonial history can be written in a minor-key register around private sensibilities.

Evidence

I imagine what it might take to write a history of empire “in a minor key,” through a register that conveys the confused sensibilities that cut across Valck’s official record, inflecting the collision and collusion between his personal and public lives. — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 333

Categorization

• SEED: The ‘minor key’ approach to colonial history is a transferable method worth developing as an essay on academic historiography.