Introduction: Comparing Queerly, Queering Comparison: Theorizing Identities between Cultures, Histories, and Disciplines; J.Hayes, M.R.Higonnet & W.J.Spurlin PART I: CROSSING TIME Queer from the Very Beginning: (En)gendering the Vernacular in Medieval France; K.Campbell Figural Historiography: Dogs, Humans, and Cynanthropic Becomings; C.Freccero Mapping Sapphic Modernity; S.S.Lanser 'Fair Is Not Fair': Queer Possibility and Fairground Performers in Western Europe and the United States, 1870–1935; F.Canadé Sautman Time's Corpus: On Sexuality, Historiography, and the Indian Penal Code; A.Arondekar PART II: CROSSING CULTURES Double Trouble: Doing Gender in Hong Kong; M.-P.Ha Universal Particularities: Conceptions of Sexuality, Nationality, and Culture in France and the United States; T.J.D.Armbrecht 'Words Create Worlds': Rethinking Genre in the Animal Fables of Suniti Namjoshi and Vikram Seth; B.Jackson Genet among the Palestinians: Sex, Betrayal, and the Incomparable Real; J.Penney Afterword: Comparisons Worth Making; V.Traub