APSA 12th International Conference 2022
“The Genealogical Imagination”
Hosted (in person) by Brigham Young University (Provo, UT) on October 6-8, 2022

For more information visit https://apsa.us/apsa-2022/

How does the study of literature and culture reveal, conceal, contest, establish, and confirm genealogy? Genealogical research is a process of investigating hidden bonds and the connections that bind and unite individuals, families, and generations. It is the study of origins, and these extend vertically and horizontally. Its horizons are always receding. Genealogical work is historically oriented with a view towards the claims made by the present on the past and vice versa. Genealogy at times confirms tradition and other times challenges it. While Nietzsche and later Foucault set the stage for genealogical thinking in the humanities (historicizing ideas of power, knowledge, discourse, and values), it was perhaps Deleuze who most clearly argued for how a critical genealogy can uncover “the origin of the values and the value of the origins.” Genealogical thinking thus serves a crucial role in preparing society for the future. As Abdias do Nascimento argues: “We must not reject out of hand the valid fundaments of our ancestral cultures, for they will be the spirit and the substance of tomorrow.”

Genealogical positioning is also a political act. In an age of political and social schisms, as divisions caused by partisanship and polarization have grown deeper, nurturing a genealogical imagination becomes both an act of resistance and potentially one of healing. Identifying bonds (whether bonds of genetics or affect) can unsettle dominant power structures and give a voice to alternative, marginalized, and virtual communities.