A Comparative Frame of Mind

相對的思維框架

10.6184/TKR201412-2

Ali Behdad

比較文學 ； 比較 ； 照相術 ； 中東 ； 東方主義 ； comparative literature ； comparison ； photography ； Middle East ； Orientalism

Tamkang Review

45卷1期（2014 / 12 / 01）

23 - 43

英文

表面上看來，比較文學似乎永遠處於學科危機之中，但在本篇論文裡，藉由回應這個危機，我認為應該將焦點轉移，焦點不應放在擴張與開拓的邏輯，而應重新反思「比較」此一概念。我主張比較文學應被視為一項實踐，透過一個相對的思維框架，將不同想法納入並予以實現；我認為的「比較」這個概念是分析性，而非操作可比較或不可比較的物品；作為一種分析，「比較」不會衍生出詮釋的行為，亦即詮釋文學作品或文化物件之間的相似處或差異，反而可以指出任何物品都具有本質上的相對性。相對的思維框架也認真考量物品本身的獨斷任意性，因此不獨厚文學作品；這意味著，比較此一實踐將文化物件放置在相對的情境，無論情境中其他物品為何；此一實踐不再強調文化物件與文學作品之間是否具有內在關連，如同傳統比較文學學者意圖完成的目標，也不再企圖揭露無法相容的差異，如同後殖民比較學學者做的事。相對的思維框架將尋找有意義的圖像，無論研究的對象是文學作品或文化檔案。

In this paper, I suggest a shift of focus from the logic of expansion and extension towards a reflective reconsideration of the very notion of comparison by way of responding to the seemingly perpetual state of disciplinary crisis in comparative literature. I argue that comparative literature ought to be viewed as a practice of engaging and realizing ideas through a comparative frame of mind. My notion of comparison is an analytics as opposed to an operation on comparable or incommensurable objects. Comparison as an analytics does not entail an act of interpreting the similarities or differences between literary or cultural objects, but recognizes instead that any work is inherently comparative. A comparative frame of mind also takes seriously the arbitrariness of the object itself, and as a result does not privilege the literary object as such. What this implies is that the practice of comparison entails situating any cultural object in relation to whatever else there is. Neither invested in the intrinsic connections between cultural or literary objects, as traditional practitioners of comparative literature aimed to accomplish, nor attempting to disclose the incommensurable differences, as postcolonial comparativists have done, a comparative frame of mind looks for meaningful patterns in whatever literary object or cultural archive one happens to study.

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