#comparative studies

But I feel like her laugh is too screechy to not be a little bit the Gillian. But she does do the pretending to be dismissive thing. Actually she goes much harder than David does lol. But not as chilly. And she teases more. Gillian is the teaser. David had a brief window where he lowered himself to teasing, but he’s mostly aloof/defensive. Gwen seems like a total troll who lives to mess with Nikolaj. Like, straightfacedly informing the other one that yes, their tweets are private is definitely something Gillian would do. 

Gregory Nagy Thinking Iranian, Rethinking Greek (keynote address in celebration of the grand opening of The UCLA Pourdavoud Center for the Study of the Iranian World), Brewminate, May 25, 2017 (it can be found also on https://classical-inquiries.chs.harvard.edu/thinking-iranian-rethinking-greek/)

"Strategizing a Rationale for the Argumentation

That said, my presentation can start moving again. As I push the restart button, I find I have to ask myself… So why in the world did my friend Rahim ask me to present a keynote address about the Iranian world? As the superb Iranist that he is, he knows so much more than I about this wondrous world. In a perfect world, Rahim should be the keynote speaker. And there are many in the audience that I am addressing at this splendid event who are likewise Iranists. But here I am, standing before you as the designated keynote speaker, and I am not even an Iranist! I am a Hellenist. I specialize in studying not the ancient Iranians but the ancient Greeks, and my field of specialization makes me almost inappropriate or even unacceptable at our event here, since the ancient Greeks and their favorite leader Alexander can be held collectively responsible for putting the Achaemenid Empire out of commission! As I search for some kind of self-justification as speaker, I can come up with one plausible argument: I may be a Hellenist, yes, but I am also a comparatist. I compare structures, whether or not they are historically related to each other. UCLA has many world-renowned comparatists, including my dear friend Rahim. So I guess that Rahim as a comparatist invited me as a comparatist, expecting me to do my best in comparing things. I should add that many other UCLA comparatists besides Rahim are attending our splendid event, including our genial host, the Dean of Humanities at UCLA, David Schaberg, who has done world-class research in comparing typologically—I will explain in a minute what I mean by using this word—some aspects of ancient Chinese literary traditions with corresponding aspects in the historically unrelated literary traditions of the ancient Greeks. In referring to the comparative work of Dean Schaberg, I can speak rather knowledgeably: I had the honor of serving as one of the readers for his stellar Ph.D. dissertation in Comparative Literature, completed at Harvard University in 1996.

Applying Comparative Methods

So, here I can loop back to where I started in my Introduction, where I spoke about Iranians and their relations with the Greeks. Given that my project is to think Iranian about the Greeks as well as think Greek about the Iranians, I can go about it as a comparatist, comparing the existing evidence about both Iranian and Greek civilization. The comparison can be historical, since Iranians and Greeks were in close contact with each other over vast stretches of historically documented time—and the contact was not even always hostile. Or the comparison can be typological where the details that are being compared are not necessarily the result of historical contact. And there is even one further level of comparison, which can be described as genealogical. By using this term I am referring to the methodologies of Indo-European linguistics. Both Iranian and Greek are branches of a language-family known to comparative linguists as Indo-European, and the shared linguistic heritage of Iranian languages and of the Greek language can yield a wealth of insights into the meanings of cognate words and even of the cognate traditions of verbal art in which these words are embedded. A master at this kind of comparative research is Rahim’s Doktor Vater at Harvard, Oktor Skjærvø, who is prominently in attendance at our splendid event.

So, how shall I proceed with my exercise in comparing things Iranian with things Greek? I propose to present three sets of examples. I will start with (1) historical comparisons, where the details being compared resulted from actual contact between Iranians and Greeks; then I will continue with (2) typological comparisons, where the details being compared do not necessarily depend on any historical contact; and then I will end with (3) a genealogical comparison, where the Iranian languages and the Greek language have both inherited a detail that proves to be of some interest. In the last case, I know for a fact that the detail I will highlight is of particular interest to my dear friend Oktor Skjærvø.

Examples of Historical Comparison

I start with a comparison that centers on the Iranian reception of the conquests achieved in Iran by the Greek man Alexander. We are dealing here with a historical comparison, since these conquests can of course be verified as historical fact. And Greek thinking reflects this fact, albeit imperfectly. But Iranian thinking forces a rethinking. In terms of the Iranian reception, which can be analyzed as a historical fact in its own right, Alexander the son of Philip of Macedon is transformed into Iskandar the son of Dāryush, viewed not as a Greek but as an Iranian king who fits into the history and prehistory of Iranian civilization. To say that Alexander was really born Iranian is of course not a historical fact, but the long-term Iranian tradition that figures him as a son of Darius, not Philip, is indeed a fact of reception, which is a genuine historical fact. This historical fact of reception is most clearly visible in the Shahnama or Book of Kings composed at the end of the 10th century of our era by Ferdowsi, whose name means ‘man of paradise’ and whom Iranians today justly consider to be the ultimate poet of Iranian civilization. In the exalted poetry of Ferdowsi, Iskandar is the conqueror of the world, yes, but he is not really the conqueror of the Iranians. His primary deed is not even his conquest of the whole world but rather his quest to find a grand meaning for his conquests, without specific reference to the Greek view of Alexander as conqueror of the Persian Empire. In this regard, I am strongly influenced by the article of Olga M. Davidson (2010), “The Burden of Mortality: Alexander and the Dead in Persian Epic and Beyond.” The full reference can be found in the Bibliography."

Edgar Allan Poe and Edogawa Ranpo are two prominent writers from different cultural backgrounds who have made significant contributions to the genre of mystery and horror fiction. In this essay, we will explore the similarities and differences between their writings and celebrate the cultural exchange that has influenced their works. Edgar Allan Poe was an American writer, poet, and literary…

“Despite the proliferation of interest in the subjects of secrecy and esotericism throughout popular culture, media and entertainment, these phenomena have only recently begun to be treated seriously by historians of religions. In this essay, I suggest a new way of looking at esotericism by engaging in a comparative, cross-cultural analysis, and by looking in particular at its social and political implications. Specifically, I compare two traditions-the Śrīvidyā school of Indian Tantra, and the Rectified Scottish Rite of French Freemasonry-juxtaposing and analogically relating them in order to shed new light on both. Contrary to many popular conceptions, I argue that esotericism is by no means primarily a “counter-cultural” or “subversive” phenomenon; rather, it is very often an elitist phenomenon, the province of highly educated, affluent and powerful intellectuals, who wish, not to undermine existing social structures, but rather subtly to reinforce them, or else to bend and reshape them according to their own interests. This essay examines three primary strategies employed by the Tantrics and Masons: 1) the creation of a new social space or private sphere, which promises “equality” and liberation for all classes, while at the same time constructing new and more rigid hierarchies; 2) a hermeneutical strategy, which appropriates the authority of traditional scriptures, while at the same time asserting the superiority of esoteric exegesis; 3) a ritual strategy, which creates a homology between the body of the initiate, the hierarchy of the cosmos and the hierarchy of the esoteric sect, inscribing the individual into the body of the order, and inscribing the order onto the human body.”

The above passage is an abstract from an essay titled Elitism and Esotericism: Strategies of Secrecy and Power in South Indian Tantra and French Freemasonry written by Hugh B. Urban (a professor of comparative studies at OSU) for the academic journal Numen: International Review for the History of Religions. If one is interested in esotericism, comparative studies or religious history It’s definitely worth a look!

I must say that I really love reading mind mindbogglingly complex books about esoteric metaphysics; seriously, I love it. I love being dazzled by imaginative, poetic, and sometimes shocking spiritual imagery, and challenged by strange concepts that push me into uncharted (and sometimes uncomfortable!) territory where I’ve never been before. But if there is one thing that pisses me off it’s when a group of people claim to have the Truth or the Knowledge or attempt to privilege one reading/exegesis of a sacred text over all others (Urban’s second point above). And, although I’m admittedly not an expert in all the World’s esoteric traditions, in my experience studying various forms of esotericism I’ve reached a lot of the same conclusions that Urban has reached, for example: esoteric practitioners generally believe that knowledge (particularly spiritual knowledge) is power. I’ve explained before why, from a process-relational, religious naturalist, pneu-materialist and non-dual spiritual perspective, I don’t’ think privileging spiritual knowledge is such a great idea and I still hold to this position for the most part (I’m open to having my mind changed! Convince me otherwise! LOL!).

But beyond that, I’ve also had another inclination regarding esotericism and it’s link to traditional/conservative tendencies that Urban puts into words rather well I think: “[esotericism] …allows the individual to live a seemingly orthodox, traditional, conservative life in the outer social world, while at the same time, leading a secret inner life, often involving powerful heterodox or even antinomian esoteric practices.” Urban actually goes further in his paper and shows how esotericism has been used to reinforce various types of racial, gender and class supremacy.