Sibling Action: The Genealogical Structure Of Modernity
by Stefani Engelstein /
2017 / English / PDF
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The sibling stands out as a ubiquitous—yet
unacknowledged—conceptual touchstone across the European long
nineteenth century. Beginning in the late eighteenth century,
Europeans embarked on a new way of classifying the world,
devising genealogies that determined degrees of relatedness by
tracing heritage through common ancestry. This methodology
organized historical systems into family trees in a wide array of
new disciplines, transforming into siblings the closest
contemporaneous terms on trees of languages, religions, races,
nations, species, or individuals. In literature, a sudden
proliferation of siblings—often incestuously inclined—negotiated
this confluence of knowledge and identity. In all genealogical
systems the sibling term, not quite same and not quite other,
serves as an active fault line, necessary for and yet
continuously destabilizing definition and classification.
The sibling stands out as a ubiquitous—yet
unacknowledged—conceptual touchstone across the European long
nineteenth century. Beginning in the late eighteenth century,
Europeans embarked on a new way of classifying the world,
devising genealogies that determined degrees of relatedness by
tracing heritage through common ancestry. This methodology
organized historical systems into family trees in a wide array of
new disciplines, transforming into siblings the closest
contemporaneous terms on trees of languages, religions, races,
nations, species, or individuals. In literature, a sudden
proliferation of siblings—often incestuously inclined—negotiated
this confluence of knowledge and identity. In all genealogical
systems the sibling term, not quite same and not quite other,
serves as an active fault line, necessary for and yet
continuously destabilizing definition and classification.
In her provocative book, Stefani Engelstein argues that this
pervasive relational paradigm shaped the modern subject, life
sciences, human sciences, and collective identities such as race,
religion, and gender. The insecurity inherent to the sibling
structure renders the systems it underwrites fluid. It therefore
offers dynamic potential, but also provokes counterreactions such
as isolationist theories of subjectivity, the political exclusion
of sisters from fraternal equality, the tyranny of intertwined
economic and kinship theories, conflicts over natural kinds and
evolutionary speciation, and invidious anthropological and
philological classifications of Islam and Judaism. Integrating
close readings across the disciplines with panoramic intellectual
history and arresting literary interpretations,
In her provocative book, Stefani Engelstein argues that this
pervasive relational paradigm shaped the modern subject, life
sciences, human sciences, and collective identities such as race,
religion, and gender. The insecurity inherent to the sibling
structure renders the systems it underwrites fluid. It therefore
offers dynamic potential, but also provokes counterreactions such
as isolationist theories of subjectivity, the political exclusion
of sisters from fraternal equality, the tyranny of intertwined
economic and kinship theories, conflicts over natural kinds and
evolutionary speciation, and invidious anthropological and
philological classifications of Islam and Judaism. Integrating
close readings across the disciplines with panoramic intellectual
history and arresting literary interpretations,Sibling
Action
Sibling
Action presents a compelling new understanding of systems of
knowledge and provides the foundation for less confrontational
formulations of belonging, identity, and agency.
presents a compelling new understanding of systems of
knowledge and provides the foundation for less confrontational
formulations of belonging, identity, and agency.