A Saga of Conceptual Difficulties

This ambitious anthology of essays proposes a kind of paradigm shift—it situates “similarity” as a possible and plausible paradigm of cultural analysis. Bringing together contributions from a range of disciplines that include literary and cultural studies, philosophy, political science, sociology, anthropology, and history, the collection—divided into two sections organised under the signs of “Theory” and “Case Studies,” respectively—explores the theoretical range of the concept of similarity in historical and conceptual terms. The editors of the collection, Anil Bhatti and Dorothee Kimmich, suggest that

the traditional emphasis on the principle of a hermeneutic of understanding difference in cultural theory and practice is inadequate for comprehending the … transformations which characterize our contemporary world. (p xi)