The Pre-Occupation of Postcolonial Studies contains essays by both leading figures and younger scholars engaged in the field of postcolonial studies. In this state-of-the-field reader, editors Fawzia Afzal-Khan and Kalpana Seshadri-Crooks have created a dynamic forum for contributors from a variety of theoretical and disciplinary vantage points to question both the limits and the limitations of postcolonial thought. Since it burst on the academic scene as the "hot" new disciplinary field during the final decade of the twentieth century, postcolonial studies has faced criticism from those who question its "troubling" trajectories, its sometimes suspect epistemological and pedagogical methods, and its relatively narrow focus. With diverse essays that emerge from such disciplines as South Asian, Latin American, Arab, and Jewish studies, this volume responds to skeptics and adherers alike, addressing not only the broad theoretical issues at stake within the field but also the position of the field itself within the academy, as well as its relationship to modern, postmodern, and Marxist discourses. Contributors offer critiques on ahistorical and universalizing tendencies in postcolonial work and confront the need for scholars to attend to issues of class, ideology, and the effects of neocolonial practices. Seeking to broaden the field's traditionally literary spectrum of methodologies, these essayists take up large thematic issues to examine specific sites of colonial activities with all of their historical, political, and cultural significance. Closing the volume is an insightful interview with Homi Bhabha, in which he discusses postcolonial studies in the context of contemporary cultural politics and theory. The Pre-Occupation of Postcolonial Studies not only offers an overview of the discipline but also pushes and pulls at the edges of postcolonial studies, offering a comprehensive view of the field's diversity of thought and envisioning clear pathways for its future. Contributors. Fawzia Afzal-Khan, Ali Behdad, Homi Bhabha, Daniel Boyarin, Neil Larsen, Saree Makdisi, Joseph Massad, Walter Mignolo, Hamid Naficy, Ngugi Wa Thingo, Timothy B. Powell, R. Radhakrishnan, Bruce Robbins, Kalpana Seshadri-Crooks, Ella Shohat, Rajeswari Sunder Rajan

With sweeping changes in the Soviet Union and East Europe having shaken core assumptions of U.S. defense policy, it is time to reassess basic questions of American nuclear strategy and force requirements. In a comprehensive analysis of these issues, Charles Glaser argues that even before the recent easing of tension with the Soviet Union, the United States should have revised its nuclear strategy, rejecting deterrent threats that require the ability to destroy Soviet nuclear forces and forgoing entirely efforts to limit damage if all-out nuclear war occurs. Changes in the Soviet Union, suggests Glaser, may be best viewed as creating an opportunity to make revisions that are more than twenty years overdue. Glaser's provocative work is organized in three parts. "The Questions behind the Questions" evaluates the basic factual and theoretical disputes that underlie disagreements about U.S. nuclear weapons policy. "Alternative Nuclear Worlds" compares "mutual assured destruction capabilities" (MAD)--a world in which both superpowers' societies are highly vulnerable to nuclear retaliation--to the basic alternatives: mutual perfect defenses, U.S. superiority, and nuclear disarmament. Would any basic alternatives be preferable to MAD? Drawing on the earlier sections of the book, "Decisions in MAD" addresses key choices facing American decision makers. Originally published in 1990. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Bringing his perennially popular course to the page, Yale University Professor Paul H. Fry offers in this welcome book a guided tour of the main trends in twentieth-century literary theory. At the core of the book's discussion is a series of underlying questions: What is literature, how is it produced, how can it be understood, and what is its purpose? Fry engages with the major themes and strands in twentieth-century literary theory, among them the hermeneutic circle, New Criticism, structuralism, linguistics and literature, Freud and fiction, Jacques Lacan's theories, the postmodern psyche, the political unconscious, New Historicism, the classical feminist tradition, African American criticism, queer theory, and gender performativity. By incorporating philosophical and social perspectives to connect these many trends, the author offers readers a coherent overall context for a deeper and richer reading of literature.

The Oxford Handbook of Postcolonial Studies provides a comprehensive overview of the latest scholarship in postcolonial studies, while also considering possible future developments in the field. Original chapters written by a worldwide team of contritbuors are organised into five cross-referenced sections, 'The Imperial Past', 'The Colonial Present', 'Theory and Practice', 'Across the Disciplines', and 'Across the World'. The chapters offer both country-specific and comparative approaches to current issues, offering a wide range of new and interesting perspectives. The Handbook reflects the increasingly multidisciplinary nature of postcolonial studies and reiterates its continuing relevance to the study of both the colonial past—in its multiple manifestations— and the contemporary globalized world. Taken together, these essays, the dialogues they pursue, and the editorial comments that surround them constitute nothing less than a blueprint for the future of a much-contested but intellectually vibrant and politically engaged field.

Examining the legacies of European imperialism, Steed Vernyl Davidson traces how the Bible reflects strong affinities with empire and provides on-going justifications for empire and concentrations of power. Writing/Reading the Bible in Postcolonial Perspective traces the evolution of the Bible from its production in empires of antiquity to its supportive role in the development of modern imperialism. The work also engages the ambiguities of the Bible as anti-imperial tool. Set within an examination of postcolonial studies as a revolutionary and revisionary discourse, this work presses for a more vigorous postcolonializing of the Bible in Biblical Studies. A description of the contemporary features and manifestation of empire forms the context within which further exploration of postcolonial biblical critical work can take place. Following an assessment of previous work in the field, the challenges of intersectional work with queer studies, terrorism studies, technology, and ecological studies are laid out as future tasks

Canadian literature, and specifically the teaching of Canadian literature, has emerged from a colonial duty to a nationalist enterprise and into the current territory of postcolonialism. From practical discussions related to specific texts, to more theoretical discussions about pedagogical practice regarding issues of nationalism and identity, Home-Work constitutes a major investigation and reassessment of the influence of postcolonial theory on Canadian literary pedagogy from some of the top scholars in the field.

Much theoretical and historical work engaged with the question of the "postcolonial" is built upon an imagined, unified premodern "Middle Ages" in Europe. One of the results of this has been that in recent years scholars in medieval and early modern studies have been critically assessing the uses of postcolonial and subaltern theoretical perspectives in their fields, and considering what their periods have to say to postcolonial theorists. This book offers a series of original essays that explore with specificity the methodological, textual, cultural, and historiographic moves required for postcolonial engagements with premodern times.