Conditions of Comparison: Reflections on Comparative Intercultural Inquiry

This book uses literary theory and comparative studies to examine how the conceptual resources of cultures may pre-figure our perspectives and pre-determine our world-views. How do we know the other culture? How do such inquiries impact on our knowledge of our own culture? These questions lie at the heart of comparative intercultural studies. As a theoretical inquiry into how conceptual resources of cultures (such as explicit and implicit categories of thought) may pre-figure our perspectives, this book reconceives and reorients comparative intercultural inquiry by arguing for the importance of an epistemological approach and for its potential to transform current critical paradigms, in contrast to approaches that emphasize primarily the political and the ethical. By critically engaging with and developing the insights of scholars and thinkers from both Anglo-American and Continental traditions, the book makes a significant meta-critical contribution to a rethinking of comparative intercultural studies and literary theory. This book will be of interest to students and scholars in comparative literature, English, world literature, and global and translation studies.