One of the most influential developments in the humanities and social sciences during the past decade or so has been the consolidation and dissemination of postcolonial studies as an academic field, centred on the analysis of colonialism, imperialism and other related phenomena, and yielding a vast scholarly literature across a broad range of disciplines. During the past five years or so, postcolonial studies has begun to make significant inroads in biblical studies, giving rise to numerous conference papers, articles, essays and books, as well as to an SBL program unit. Postcolonial Biblical Criticism is most in-depth introduction to date to postcolonial biblical criticism. This volume explores postcolonial biblical criticism from a number of different but interrelated angles, so as to bring it into as sharp a focus as possible. Thus far, such a mapping of postcolonial biblical criticism as a whole has not been undertaken in explicit and detailed terms. Postcolonial Biblical Criticism seeks to do this primarily by carefully situating postcolonial biblical criticism in relation to other important political and theoretical currents in contemporary biblical studies: feminism; racial/ethnic studies; poststructuralism; and Marxism. Alternating between hermeneutical and exegetical reflection, the essays cumulatively isolate and evaluate the definitive features of postcolonial biblical criticism.

Author Biography

Fernando F. Segovia is Oberlin Graduate Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity, at the Divinity School, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee. His recent publications include Postcolonial Biblical Criticism (T&T Clark, 2005), coedited with Stephen Moore; Toward a New Heaven and a New Earth: Essays in Honor of Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza (Orbis Books, 2003). Stephen Moore is Professor of New Testament, Drew University, New Jersey.