MONDAY NIGHT LECTURE SERIES | ’COMPARISON’ AS A MODE OF INQUIRY IN THE POST-COMPARATIVE WORLD

We are not here to bring the love we bear to women … into comparison, nor rank it with [other forms of love]. Opportunities and limits of comparisons in premodern and modern times.

FEBRUARY 15 @ 6 P.M. | Daniel Family Commons, Usdan University Center

The title cites Montaignes Essays, where he refused to compare or rank different forms of love (to your partner, your friend, your children). Should they not be compared or can they not be compared? What are the limits of comparisons and what does incomparability mean? Can comparison and incomparability be historicized? The paper tries some tentative answers to these and other questions by looking at the similarities and differences of how comparisons are used in modern and premodern times, with a clear focus on medieval and early modern comparisons.