Seminar Series: Abstract

09:30
August 12 2009
Seminar Room A

A Genealogy of Genealogy
James Fox (ANU)

This excursion into the history of anthropology looks at the beginnings of genealogical representation in anthropology. I trace a direct genealogical line from Lewis Henry Morgan’s genealogy representation in Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity (1870) back to its source in Blackstone’s Essay on Collateral Consanguinity (1750) and in turn, trace Blackstone’s source to Johannis Andreas of Nuremberg’s Arbor Consanguinitatis et cum suis Enigimatibus et Figuris (1510). After Nuremberg, the trail shifts to Bologna in the early 13th Italy but becomes less clear. In the process, I discuss the historical context and significance of these different genealogical representations