World Philology

Philology-the Discipline Of Making Sense Of Texts-is Enjoying A Renaissance Within Academia After Decades Of Neglect. World Philology Charts The Evolution Of Philology Across The Many Cultures And Historical Time Periods In Which It Has Been Practiced, And Demonstrates How This Branch Of Knowledge, Like Philosophy And Mathematics, Is An Essential Component Of Human Understanding. Every Civilization Has Developed Ways Of Interpreting The Texts That It Produces, And Differences Of Philological Practice Are As Instructive As The Similarities. We Owe Our Idea Of A Textual Edition For Example, To The Third-century Bce Scholars Of The Alexandrian Library. Rabbinical Philology Created An Innovation In Hermeneutics By Shifting Focus From How The Bible Commands To What It Commands. Philologists In Song China And Tokugawa Japan Produced Startling Insights Into The Nature Of Linguistic Signs. In The Early Modern Period, New Kinds Of Philology Arose In Europe But Also Among Indian, Chinese, And Japanese Commentators, Persian Editors, And Ottoman Educationalists Who Began To Interpret Texts In Ways That Had Little Historical Precedent. They Made Judgments About The Integrity And Consistency Of Texts, Decided How To Create Critical Editions, And Determined What It Actually Means To Read. Covering A Wide Range Of Cultures-greek, Roman, Hebrew, Arabic, Sanskrit, Chinese, Indo-persian, Japanese, Ottoman, And Modern European-world Philology Lays The Groundwork For A New Scholarly Discipline. Frontmatter -- Contents -- Foreword / Wang, Fan-sen -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction / Pollock, Sheldon -- 1. From Book To Edition: Philology In Ancient Greece / Montanari, Franco -- 2. The Bride Of Mercury: Confessions Of A 'pataphilologist / Zetzel, James E. G. -- 3. Striving For Meaning: A Short History Of Rabbinic Omnisignificance / Elman, Yaakov -- 4. Early Arabic Philologists: Poetry's Friends Or Foes? / Gruendler, Beatrice -- 5. What Was Philology In Sanskrit? / Pollock, Sheldon -- 6. Reconciling The Classics: Two Case Studies In Song- Yuan Exegetical Approaches / Lackner, Michael -- 7. Humanist Philologies: Texts, Antiquities, And Their Scholarly Transformations In The Early Modern West / Grafton, Anthony -- 8. Mughal Philology And Rūmī's Mathnavī / Alam, Muzaffar -- 9. The Rise Of Deep Reading In Early Modern Ottoman Scholarly Culture / El-rouayheb, Khaled -- 10. Early Modern Or Late Imperial? The Crisis Of Classical Philology In Eighteenth- Century China / Elman, Benjamin A. -- 11. The Politics Of Philology In Japan: Ancient Texts, Language, And Japanese Identity / Burns, Susan L. -- 12. Enthusiasm Dwells Only In Specialization: Classical Philology And Disciplinarity In Nineteenth- Century Germany / Güthenke, Constanze -- 13. The Intelligence Of Philological Practice: On The Interpretation Of Rilke's Sonnet O Komm Und Geh / König, Christoph -- 14. Philology Or Linguistics? Transcontinental Responses / Chang, Ku-ming Kevin -- Notes -- Bibliography -- List Of Contributors -- Index Sheldon Pollock. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. English