Regimes of Comparatism

Frameworks of Comparison in History, Religion and Anthropology

Series: 

Historically, all societies have used comparison to analyze cultural difference through the interaction of religion, power, and translation. When comparison is a self-reflective practice, it can be seen as a form of comparatism. Many scholars are concerned in one way or another with the practice and methods of comparison, and the need for a cognitively robust relativism is an integral part of a mature historical self-placement. This volume looks at how different theories and practices of writing and interpretation have developed at different times in different cultures and reconsiders the specificities of modern comparative approaches within a variety of comparative moments. The idea is to reconsider the specificities, the obstacles, and the possibilities of modern comparative approaches in history and anthropology through a variety of earlier and parallel comparative horizons. Particular attention is given to the exceptional role of Athens and Jerusalem in shaping the Western understanding of cultural difference.

Contributors are: Matei Candea, Philippe Descola, Renaud Gagné, Simon Goldhill, Anthony Grafton, Caroline Humphrey, Dmitri Levitin, Geoffrey Lloyd, Joan-Pau Rubiés, Jonathan Sheehan, Marilyn Strathern, Guy Stroumsa, and Phiroze Vasunia.

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Renaud Gagné is Reader in the Faculty of Classics at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Pembroke College. He has published widely on ancient Greek literature and religion, including Ancestral Fault in Ancient Greece (Cambridge University Press 2013).
Simon Goldhill is Professor of Greek in the Faculty of Classics at the University of Cambridge. He has published extensively on classical literature, especially Greek tragedy, and on Victorian culture, including Victorian Culture and Classical Antiquity (Princeton University Press 2011).
Sir Geoffrey Lloyd is Emeritus Professor of Ancient Philosophy and Science in the Faculty of Classics at the University of Cambridge. He is the author of numerous books and articles on ancient Greek and Chinese philosophy and science, including Analogical Investigations (Cambridge University Press 2015).
Notes on Contributors

Introduction: Regimes of Comparatism, Renaud Gagné

1. Comparisons Compared: A Study in the Early Modern Roots of Cultural History, Anthony Grafton
2. What Was the Comparative History of Religions in 17th-Century Europe (and Beyond)? Pagan Monotheism/Pagan Animism, from T’ien to Tylor, Dmitri Levitin
3. Comparing Cultures in the Early Modern World: Hierarchies, Genealogies and the Idea of European Modernity, Joan-Pau Rubiés
4. Comparison and Christianity: Sacrifice in the Age of the Encyclopedia, Jonathan Sheehan
5. The Isis of Turin Affair, Renaud Gagné
6. What Has Alexandria to Do with Jerusalem?: Writing the History of the Jews in the 19th Century, Simon Goldhill
7. Akbar’s Dream: The Mughal Emperor in Nineteenth-Century Literature, Phiroze Vasunia
8. History of Religions: The Comparative Moment, Guy G. Stroumsa
9. Going Full Frontal: Two Modalities of Comparison in Social Anthropology, Matei Candea
10. Placing Self Amid Others: A Mongolian Technique of Comparison, Caroline Humphrey
11. Anthropological Comparatisms: Generalisation, Symmetrisation, Bifurcation, Philippe Descola
12. Friendship and Kinship: Comparatism and Its Theoretical Possibilities in Anthropology, Marilyn Strathern
13. The Fortunes of Comparatism: History, Anthropology, Philosophy, Geoffrey E. R. Lloyd

Index
All interested in the history and practice of cultural comparison, most notably in history, anthropology, Classics, religious studies, and comparative literature.
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