Conditions of Comparison Reflections on Comparative Intercultural Inquiry [Paperback]

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 re-conceives 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. It will be of interest to students and scholars in comparative literature, English, world literature, and global and translation studies.

Ming Xieis Associate Professor of English at the University of Toronto, Canada. He is the author ofEzra Pound and the Appropriation of Chinese Poetry(Routledge, 1999).

Conditions of Comparison offers a meticulous genealogy and timely recapitulation of key critical concepts, reading protocols, and analytical instruments that constitute the discipline of comparative literature and culture. Ming Xie ably demonstrates the potential of this disciplinary formation for what he terms comparative intercultural inquiry as interpretive practice and ethical intervention among diverse cultures, their historical imbrications, and contrapuntal engagements. An exemplary study that illustrates the self-reflexive practices whose history it eloquently narrates. Djelal Kadir, Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Comparative Literature, Penn State University, USA and author of Memos from the Besieged City: Lifelines for Cultural Sustainability (Stanford University Press, 20l£6