Editorial Foreword

This issue of the Journal of Nietzsche Studies examines Nietzsche's thought through the multiple lenses of comparative, or cross-cultural, philosophy. Building upon Graham Parkes's pioneering anthology, Nietzsche and Asian Thought (Chicago, 1991), as well as a rapidly growing body of subsequent scholarship, the essays collected here attempt a kind of Auseinandersetzung between Nietzsche and various non-Western philosophical traditions.

The first three contributions focus primarily on Nietzsche's knowledge and use of Asian philosophies, and the ways in which he has in turn been interpreted and appropriated in contemporary Asian thought. In the opening essay, Thomas Brobjer draws upon his extensive research in Nietzsche's library to offer the most comprehensive account yet of Nietzsche's readings on Asian thought. David Smith focuses in particular on Nietzsche's acquaintance with the Laws of Manu and Hinduism, illuminating the way in which his knowledge of India was mediated by the unscholarly popularizations of Louis Jacolliot. Hans-Georg Moeller turns his attention to more contemporary developments, tracing the emergence of various "Sino-Nietzscheanisms" in both China and Europe, with particular attention paid to Chen Guying, one of the foremost living Daoist thinkers.

The last three essays all pursue philosophical dialogues between Nietzsche and crucial figures from non-European traditions. Steve Coutinho and Geir Sigurdsson offer a comparative examination of the project of spiritual nomadism in Nietzsche's and Zhuangzi's philosophies, raising the question of how far we can—and should—wander beyond the bounds of our humanity. Bret Davis illuminates the confrontation between Nietzsche and Buddhism with respect to the question of the will, developing and responding to Nietzsche's critical interpretation of Buddhism (as passive nihilism) and the Buddhist critique of Nietzsche's thought (as willful nihilism), before finally examining the "ironic affinities" between Zarathustra's self-overcoming of the will to power and Zen Buddhism's reaffirmation of life in the wake of the "great death." Finally, my own contribution to this issue initiates a dialogue between Nietzsche and the founding figure of Islamic philosophy, al-Kindīm. Affiliating both thinkers with the Stoic lineage, I examine the radically different ways in which they appropriate common themes of fatalism, self-cultivation, and the banishing of sorrow.

I wish to thank all the contributors to this special issue, as well as those whose work could not ultimately be included, due to various combinations of chance and necessity. I would also like to thank my colleagues in the Bucknell Department of Philosophy for their generous support, sage advice, and friendly encouragement. Finally, I would like to thank Dan Conway, Brian Domino, Cherene Holland, MaryLou McMurtrie, and Graham Parkes, without whose cheerful help and practical wisdom this issue would not have been possible.