Seminar: Expanded Genealogy

future genealogy - reverse family tree

Michel Foucault (french philosopher) popularised the genealogical method.

method - a way of doing something

methodology - the knowledge of doing something

genealogists examine the pre-conceived and question the phenomenon that 'we tend to feel is without history'

-looking at something that has already been thought of before

without history: things we don't think about e.g. internet (for this generation), goodness, colour, sexuality

Nietzsche beyond good and evil (1886)
-pre-conceived notions/eternal truths

genealogies are subjective

genealogy claims there is no eternal truth (no fabrication) 

-you can never have a full perspective

'purpose of history, guided by genealogy is not to discover the roots of our identity, but to commit itself to its dissipation'
-Foucault

root-eternal truth

'philosophers do not search for eternal truth'
-Zizek

use everything you have access to

writing the essay 
every film starts with an establishing shot
-what the characters are doing, where they are e.g Simpsons in their home

1. establish parameters of research: where you are, what's the 'tone' etc.
2. contingencies/conditions of the space: setting the scene
3. what has occurred? what's the concept
4. analyse this new fabrication: what does it mean

'a paranoid man is someone who knows a little of what's going on'
-William Burroughs