Imaginaries . . .

 

Part of the challenge of tracing a genealogical line from my uncle to my life lies, of course, in his death early in my adolescence. And yet his absence required me to produce the narratives that would bind us together, sustaining our relational bond. I had to imagine his life in ways I would never see it. The genealogical imperative of my family weighed heavily on me. Creating an alternative genealogy, the project my uncle left me with as his inheritance, required experimentation and imagination.

 

Foucault describes the work of genealogical analysis this way:

 

It must record the singularity of events outside of any monotonous finality; it must seek them in the most unpromising places, in what we tend to feel is without history—in sentiments, love, conscience, instincts; it must be sensitive to their recurrence, not in order to trace the gradual curve of their evolution but to isolate the different scenes where they engaged in different roles. Finally, genealogy must define even those instances when they are absent, the moment when they remained unrealized. ("Nietzsche" 139–40)

 

For me, creative and experimental writing has been a way to trace the genealogical contours that, as Foucault points out, do not constitute the “gradual curve” of an evolution but rather the “different scenes” and “instances” through which we can not only critique the dominant view but also open up possibilities for orienting ourselves in other directions.