Regimes of comparatism : : frameworks of comparison in history, religion and anthropology / / Renaud Gagne.

• Author: Gagne, Renaud.
• Place / Publishing House: Boston, MA : : Brill,, 2018.
• Year of Publication: 2018
• Language: English
• Series: Jerusalem Studies in Religion and Culture 24.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (473 pages)

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.

Table of Contents

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