Journal Article10.1086/462864
The Bare Facts of Ritual
104
TL;DR: The discovery that two events, symbols, thoughts or texts, while so utterly separated by time and space that they could not "really" be connected, seem, nevertheless, to be the same or to be speaking directly to one another raises the possibility of a secret interconnection of things that is the scholar's most cherished article of faith.
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Abstract: There is one aspect of scholarship that has remained constant from the earliest Near Eastern scribes and omen interpreters to contemporary academicians: the thrill of encountering a coincidence. The discovery that two events, symbols, thoughts or texts, while so utterly separated by time and space that they could not "really" be connected, seem, nevertheless, to be the same or to be speaking directly to one another raises the possibility of a secret interconnection of things that is the scholar's most cherished article of faith. The thought that the patterns and interrelationships that he has patiently and laboriously teased out of his data might, in fact, exist, is the claim he makes when his work is completed as well as the claim that appears to be denied by the fact that he has had to labor so long. The scholar lives in the world that the poet, Borges, has described. And this is why coincidence is, at one and the same time, so exhilarating and so stunning. It is as if, unbidden and unearned by work and interpretation, a connection simply "chose" to make itself manifest, to display its presence on our conceptual wall with a round, clear hand.
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