The new field of world philology relies on comparing philological practices across periods and cultures. But similarities between practices can hide deep differences between underlying assumptions about texts and interpretation. In this article, I probe one example of such a disconnect between similar philological practices and different philological theories by examining a commentary on the Babylonian epic Enuma Elish, which develops the epic’s already striking notions about texts in an even more radical direction—challenging our understanding of what we are doing when we do philology.
“World Philology or Philology of the World: Commenting on Enuma Elish,” Avar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Life and Society in the Ancient Near East, vol. 2., no. 2 (Fall 2023): 265–96. Link.