Foucault's Genealogy of History

I found this week's reading to be particularly enlightening in directly telling us the theory behind the genealogies of history he has constructed. His discussion of "effective" history versus "traditional" history gives us numerous ideas for constructing a non-linear historical narrative or, rather, how one would break out of that mold. I actually don't think most people have methodologically applied Foucault very well. For instance, how many historians acknowledge that there are absolutely no constants in history--including the body itself (87)? I'm not saying there haven't been attempts to look at how the body is an unstable site, but I can't think of a historian who actually applies this method to his or her work besides Foucault... maybe somebody else can enlighten the rest of us.

The German words are a bit confusing and I also am having difficult with the idea of descent (Herkunft). If I had to guess as to what he's getting at, I would say that he finds descent ultimately rooted in and a major part of varying articulations of the body (at different times and places)--articulations that can somehow be identified at different points when they change. Those changes are related to various emergences (Entstehung). We should discuss what he means by the descent as being part of the "dissociation of identity" (94) and recognizing "all of those discontinuities that cross us" (95). I'm not quite sure I understand what he means by this.

Finally, if we have time, I'd like to discuss the importance of knowledge in "effective" history; both as power/domination, as the basis for creating a meaningful world, and in relation to the line I'm most unclear about: "the critique of the injustices of the past by a truth held by men in the present becomes the destruction of the man who maintains knowledge by the injustice proper to the will to knowledge" (97). What does he mean by "the injustice proper to the will to knowledge"?

~Amanda