Apples and Oranges by Bruce Lincoln

Apples and Oranges by Bruce Lincoln

Comparison is an indispensable intellectual operation that plays a crucial role in the formation of knowledge. Yet comparison often leads us to forego attention to nuance, detail, and context, perhaps leaving us bereft of an ethical obligation to take things correspondingly as they are. Examining the practice of comparison across the study of history, language, religion, and culture, distinguished scholar of religion Bruce Lincoln argues in Apples and Oranges for a comparatism of a more modest sort. Lincoln presents critiques of recent attempts at grand comparison, and enlists numerous theoretical examples of how a more modest, cautious, and discriminating form of comparison might work and what it can accomplish. He does this through studies of shamans, werewolves, human sacrifices, apocalyptic prophecies, sacred kings, and surveys of materials as diverse and wide-ranging as Beowulf, Herodotus’s account of the Scythians, the Native American Ghost Dance, and the Spanish Civil War. Ultimately, Lincoln argues that concentrating one's focus on a relatively small number of items that the researcher can compare closely, offering equal attention to relations of similarity and difference, not only grants dignity to all parties considered, it yields more reliable and more interesting—if less grandiose—results. Giving equal attention to the social, historical, and political contexts and subtexts of religious and literary texts also allows scholars not just to assess their content, but also to understand the forces, problems, and circumstances that motivated and shaped them.

Lincoln, Bruce: - Bruce Lincoln is the Caroline E. Haskell Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of the History of Religions in the Divinity School at the University of Chicago, where he also holds positions in the Center for Middle Eastern Studies and on the Committee on Medieval Studies, with affiliations in the Departments of Anthropology and Classics. Recent books include Between History and Myth: Stories of Harald Fairhair and the Founding of the State and Gods and Demons, Priests and Scholars: Critical Explorations in the History of Religions, both published by the University of Chicago Press.

SKU	Nicht verfügbar
ISBN 13	9780226564074
ISBN 10	022656407X
Titel	Apples and Oranges
Autor	Bruce Lincoln
Buchzustand	Nicht verfügbar
Bindungsart	Paperback
Verlag	The University of Chicago Press
Erscheinungsjahr	2018-09-05
Seitenanzahl	368
Hinweis auf dem Einband	Die Abbildung des Buches dient nur Illustrationszwecken, die tatsächliche Bindung, das Cover und die Auflage können sich davon unterscheiden.
Hinweis	Nicht verfügbar