Overview

An interdisciplinary collection of essays designed to envision a wide-ranging and productive future for postcolonial studies, this volume assesses the current state of the field and points toward its most promising new developments. In addressing questions about the definition and relevance of postcolonial scholarship, many of the essays consider its relation to the study of globalization. While some contributors offer broad reflections on the two-way influence between postcolonial theory and established university disciplines such as literary criticism and history, others forge ahead into some vital, if nascent, areas for postcolonial research such as media studies, environmental studies, religious studies, and linguistic and semantic analysis. The contributors represent many of the fields altered by postcolonial studies over the past two decades, including literary studies, history, anthropology, Asian and African studies, and political science. They model diverse applications of postcolonial theory to Latin America, East Asia, the Middle East, and the United States. Some essayists highlight topics they feel postcolonial studies has yet to adequately engage, from the postcolonial state to the history of Latin America. Others demonstrate how concepts developed by postcolonial theorists can be applied in unexpected ways, such as to better understand the separation of Christianity and Judaism in late antiquity. Postcolonial Studies and Beyond propels the field forward. It showcases scholars coming from intellectual precincts usually considered outside the purview of the postcolonial finding new ways to deploy classic techniques of postcolonial analysis, and scholars strongly associated with postcolonial studies offering substantial critiques designed to challenge the field's most fundamental methods and assumptions. Contributors Ali Behdad Timothy Brennan Matti Bunzl Antoinette Burton Laura Chrisman Jean Comaroff Vilashini Cooppan Jed Esty James Ferguson Peter Hulme Suvir Kaul Ania Loomba Florencia E. Mallon Nivedita Menon Rob Nixon Elizabeth A. Povinelli Kelwyn Sole Robert Stam

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Reviews

What truly distinguishes this volume is its attempt to find for postcolonial studies a real critical vocation at a time when the issue of Empire is once again a global subject of debate. Rich in scholarship and in the diversity of views represented here, this book will help renew the questions it addresses. --Dipesh Chakrabarty, author of Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference Postcolonial Studies and Beyond will have a place in reviewing and defining the development of postcolonial studies similar to that which Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture had for cultural studies. --David Lloyd, coeditor of The Politics of Culture in the Shadow of Capital An intelligent collection that boldly puts its very foundations on trial, and is a must for anyone with a stake in the production and perception of postcolonial studies... The last section is a fitting finale for a project designed to raise questions. --Robyn Schwartz, Altar Magazine This is an unqualifiedly enthusiastic review of a book that could not be more welcome. The essays that comprise Postcolonial Studies and Beyond are balanced--that is, among disciplinary approaches, thoughtful--that is, responsive to alternate ideas, and thankfully, lucidly written. --Nancy R. Cirillo, symploke There are stimulating, accessible pieces in this volume... The writers are also learned and smart, they make useful critiques of the largely conservative and neo-conservative regimes of knowledge that enabled colonialism and imperialism past and present, and they look sincerely for the future of their field. -- Bruce Avery, Shakespeare Studies

Postcolonial Studies and Beyond will have a place in reviewing and defining the development of postcolonial studies similar to that which Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture had for cultural studies. -David Lloyd, coeditor of The Politics of Culture in the Shadow of Capital What truly distinguishes this volume is its attempt to find for postcolonial studies a real critical vocation at a time when the issue of Empire is once again a global subject of debate. Rich in scholarship and in the diversity of views represented here, this book will help renew the questions it addresses. -Dipesh Chakrabarty, author of Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference

Author Information

Ania Loomba is Catherine Bryson Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania. Suvir Kaul is Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania. Matti Bunzl is Associate Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Antoinette Burton is Catherine C. and Bruce A. Bastian Professor of Global and Transnational Studies, Department of History, University of Illinois. Jed Esty is Associate Professor of English at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

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