Joan Ramon Resina is professor of comparative literature and of Iberian cultures at Stanford University.Christoph Wulf is professor of anthropology and education at Freie Universität Berlin.

This highly recommended book identifies nothing less than a new riddle of the Sphinx: What animal embraces mimesis; rejects repetition in the quest for freedom; and grasps for reproducibility in the face of unpredictability? The authors offer unexpected insights into this enigma and, in the process, open the human condition to sobering inspection.

• ContentsIntroductionPart 1. Human Development: Memory and Self-Transformation in Ritual and Mimetic ProcessesChapter 1. Repetition of the Self in Memory and Anticipation Joan Ramon ResinaChapter 2. Repetition and Reenactment in RitualsAxel MichaelsChapter 3. Repetitions and Difference in Physical, Mimetic, and Ritual Processes Christoph WulfChapter 4. Repetition, Training, Exercise: From Plato’s Care of the Soul to the Contemporary Self-Help IndustryAlmut-Barbara RengerPart 2. The Need to Repeat: Education, Rhetoric, and ConversationChapter 5. The Need to Repeat: Young Children’ Reliving of StoriesUrsula Stenger, Translated by James GarrisonChapter 6. Re-Petition in (Therapeutic) Conversation: A Psychoanalyst’s Perspective Using Conversation AnalysisMichael B. BuchholzChapter 7. Notes on Rhetoric and Repetition in TourismStephanie Malia HomPart 3. Creativity: Rhythm and RepetitionChapter 8. Etoku (??) and Rhythms of NatureShoko SuzukiChapter 9. The Births of Rhythm: John Dewey and Aesthetic FormVincent BarlettaChapter 10. Repeating Sound, Sounding Repetition in MusicTiago de Oliviera PintoChapter 11. Gertrud Stein on Serial RepetitionUlla HaselsteinPart 4. Aesthetics: Repetition and Creation of ArtChapter 12. Creativity and Repetition. Some Notes on the Practice and Cultural Discourses of Literary CreativityGünter BlambergerChapter 13. The Compulsion to Be Cruel: Contemporary ReturnsIsabel Capeloa GilChapter 14. Leap into the Open Sky: Political Theater as a Return to the Past Matthias WarstatChapter 15. The Domestication of Sound: On the Generativity of RepetitionHolger SchulzeChapter 16. “Let’s do it again?!”: Shaping “Global” Art Production in Urban NepalChristiane BrosiusIndexAbout the EditorsAbout the Contributors