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  Sections

  Postcolonial Theory Postcolonial Issues in Religion
  Postcolonial Criticism of the Bible (General) Postcolonial Criticism of the New Testament
  The Hebrew Bible
& Empire
The New Testament
& Empire
  Related Issues Resources

 
Postcolonial Theory
 
Durrant, Sam.  Postcolonial Narrative and the Work of Mourning: J. M. Coetzee, Wilson Harris, and Toni Morrison, SUNY Explorations in Postcolonial Studies.  Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 2003.
Coetzee (pronounced Cut SEE uh) is the 2003 recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature.
 
Gandhi, Leela.  Postcolonial Theory: A Critical Introduction.  New York: Columbia University Press, 1998.
 
Goldberg, David Theo and Ato Quayson, eds.  Relocating Postcolonialism.   Oxford: Blackwell, 2002.
 
Hallward, Peter.  "Postcolonial Theory."  In Absolutely Postcolonial: Writing between the Singular and the Specific (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001).
 
King, C. Richard.  Orientalism and Religion: Postcolonial Theory, India and the "Mystic East."  New York: Routledge, 1999.
 
Loomba, Ania.  Colonialism/Postcolonialism, New Critical Idiom.  New York: Routledge, 1998.
 

 
Postcolonial Issues in Religion
 
Ahmed, Durre S.  Gendering The Spirit: Women and Religion and the Post-Colonial Response.  London: Zed, 2002.
 
Althaus Reid, Marcella.  "Grace and the Other: A Postcolonial Reflection on Ideology and Doctrinal Systems."  In Bright Side of Life (ed. Ellen van Wolde; London: SCM Press, 2000) 63-9.
 
Althaus Reid, Marcella and T. Jack Thompson.  "Postcolonialism and Religion."  Studies in World Christianity 5 (2 1999) 129-240.
 
Bain-Selbo, Eric.  "Understanding the Other: The Challenge of Post-Colonial Theory to the Comparative Study of Religion."  Religious Studies and Theology 18 (1 1999) 60-108.
 
Bertrand, Didier.  "Order and Chaos in Paradise: Colonial and 'Postcolonial' Constructions of Religious Identity through the Robinson Crusoe Story."  Religion and Literature 27 (1995) 29-51.
 
Donaldson, Laura.  Postcolonialism and Religious Studies: An Introduction.  New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.
 
Donaldson, Laura E. and Kwok Pui-lan, eds.  Postcolonialism, Feminism and Religious Discourse.  New York: Routledge, 2002.
 
Gearon, Liam.  "A Theology of the Other: Some Postcolonial Themes in Brian Moore's Late Twentieth-century Fiction."  In Faith in the Millennium (ed. Stanley E. Porter, Michael A. Hayes and David Tombs; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001) 387-408.
 
Joy, Morny.  "Postcolonial Reflections: Challenges for Religious Studies."  Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 13 (2001) 177-95.
 
Kramer, Victor A.  "A Widening Geography of Awareness: Thomas Merton as Postcolonial Prophet."   Christianity-and-Literature 45 (1995) 13-30.
 
Larson, Gerald James.  "Discourse about 'Religion' in Colonial and Postcolonial India."  In Ethical and Political Dilemmas of Modern India (ed. Ninian Smart and Shivesh C. Thakur; New York: St. Martin's Pr, 1993) 181-93.
 
Richardson, Kurt A.  "Postcolonial Hermeneutics: The Generation and Communion of Indigenous and Historic Theologies."  Jian Dao 8 (1997) 15-36.
 
Scott, Jamie S.  And the Birds Began to Sing: Religion and Literature in Post-Colonial Cultures.  Atlanta: Rodopi, 1996.
 
Scott, Jamie S. and Paul Simpson-Housley, eds.  Mapping the Sacred: Religion, Geography and Postcolonial Literatures, Cross/Cultures: Readings in the Post/Colonial Literatures in English 48.  Atlanta: Rodopi, 2001.
 
Shepherd, Loraine Mackenzie.  Feminist Theologies for a Postmodern Church: Diversity, Community, and Scripture, American University Studies/Theology and Religion 7/219.  New York: Peter Lang, 2002
 
Smith, Andrea.  "Roundtable Discussion: Native/First Nation Theology. Dismantling the Master's Tools with the Master's House: Native Feminist Liberation Theologies."  JFSR 22:2 (2006).
 
Stirrat, R. L.  Power and Religiosity in a Post-Colonial Setting.  South Asia Books, 1992.
 
Wise, Christopher.  "Third World Literature, Postcolonial Studies, and Christianity."  Christianity and Literature 45 (1995) 4-136.

 
Postcolonial Criticism of the Bible
 
Abernethy, Andrew T., Mark G. Brett, Tim Bulkeley and Tim Meadowcroft, eds.  Isaiah and Imperial Context: The Book of Isaiah in the Times of Empire.  Eugene, Oregon: Wipf & Stock, 2013.
 
Avalos, Hector.  "The Gospel of Lucas Gavilán as Postcolonial Biblical Exegesis."  Semeia 75 (1996).
 
Bailey, Randall C. and Tina Pippin, eds.  "Race, Class, and the Politics of Biblical Translation."  Semeia 76 (1996) 1-169.
 
Berquist, J.  "Postcolonialism and Imperial Motives for Canonization."   Semeia 75 (1996).
 
Boer, Roland.  "Green Ants and Gibeonites: B. Wongar, Joshua 9, and Some Problems of Postcolonialism."  Semeia 75 (1996).
 
--------.  Last Stop Before Antarctica: The Bible and Postcolonialism in Australia, Bible and Postcolonialism 4.  Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001.
 
Boer, Roland, ed.  Postcolonialism and the Hebrew Bible: The Next Step, Semeia Studies 7.  Atlanta: SBL Press, 2013.
 
Brett, Mark G.  "The Ethics of Postcolonial Criticism."  Semeia 75 (1996).
 
--------.  Political Trauma and Healing: Biblical Ethics for a Postcolonial World.  Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2016.
 
Chia, Philip P.  "On Naming the Subject: Postcolonial Reading of Daniel 1."  Jian Dao 7 (1997) 17-36.
 
Donaldson, Laura.  "Postcolonialism and Biblical Reading: An Introduction."   Semeia 75 (1996).
 
Donaldson, Laura E., ed.  "Postcolonialism and Scriptural Reading."   Semeia 75 (1996) 1-240.
 
Dube Shomanah, Musa W.   Other Ways of Reading: African Women and the Bible, Global Perspectives on Biblical Scholarship, 2.  Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2001.
 
--------.  Postcolonial Feminist Interpretation of the Bible.  St. Louis: Chalice, 2000.
 
Gallagher, Susan VanZanten.  "Mapping the Hybrid World: Three Postcolonial Motifs."  Semeia 75 (1996).
 
--------, ed.  Postcolonial Literature and the Biblical Call for Justice.  Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1994.
 
Gossai, Hemchand, ed.  Postcolonial Commentary and the Old Testament.   New York: T&T Clark, 2018.
 
Hockey, Katherine M. and David G. Horrell, eds.  Ethnicity, Race, Religion: Identities and Ideologies in Early Jewish and Christian Texts, and in Modern Biblical Interpretation.  New York: T&T Clark, 2018.
 
Holter, Knut.  "Some Recent Studies on Postcolonialism and Biblical Scholarship."  Newsletter on African Old Testament Scholarship 5 (1998) 20-23.
 
Janzen, David.  The Necessary King: A Postcolonial Reading of the Deuteronomistic Portrait of the Monarchy, Hebrew Bible Monographs.   Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2013.
 
Kiboko, J. Kabamba.  African Culture, Postcolonial Hermeneutics, and the Politics of Biblical Translation, The Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies 644.  New York: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2017.
 
Kwok, Pui-lan.  "Response to the Semeia Volume on Postcolonial Criticism."   Semeia 75 (1996).
 
Kwok, Pui-Lan and Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, eds.  Women's Sacred Scriptures, Concilium 3.  Maryknoll, New York: Orbis, 1998.
 
Lee, Archie C. C.  "Returning to China: Biblical Interpretation in Postcolonial Hong Kong."  Biblical Interpretation 7 (1999) 156-173.
Kwok Pui-lan.  "Response to Archie Lee's Paper on 'Biblical Interpretation in Postcolonial Hong Kong.'"  Biblical Interpretation 7 (1999) 182-6.
 
Chia, Philip.  "Postcolonialization and Recolonization: A Response to Archie Lee's 'Biblical Interpretation in Postcolonial Hong Kong.'"  Biblical Interpretation 7 (1999) 174-81.
 
Liew, Tat-siong Benny and Erin Runions, eds.  Psychoanalytic Mediations between Marxist and Postcolonial Readings of the Bible, Semeia Studies 84.  Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2016.
 
Maier, Christl M. and Carolyn J. Sharp, eds.  Prophecy and Power: Jeremiah in Feminist and Postcolonial Perspective, Library of Biblical Studies/Old Testament Studies 577.  London: Bloomsbury, 2013.
 
Perdue, Leo G., Warren Carter and Coleman A. Baker.  Israel and Empire: A Postcolonial History of Israel and Early Judaism.  New York: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015.
 
Peskowitz, M.  "Tropes of Travel."  Semeia 75 (1996).
 
Punt, Jeremy.  "Translating the Bible in South Africa: Challenges to Responsibility and Contextuality."  In Bible Translation on the Threshold of the Twenty-First Century: Authority, Reception, Culture and Religion (ed. Athalya Brenner and Jan Willem van Henten; JSOTSup 353; Bible Translations in the Twenty-First Century 1; New York: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002) 94-124.
 
Reed, Stephen A.  "Critique of Canaan Banana's Call to Rewrite the Bible."  Religion and Theology/Religie and Teologie 3 (1996) 282-8.
 
Rowlett, Lori L.  "Disney's Pocahontas and Joshua's Rahab in Postcolonial Perspective."  In Culture, Entertainment and the Bible (ed. George Aichele; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000) 66-75.
 
Runions, Erin.  "Hysterical Phalli: Numbers 16, Two Contemporary Parallels, and the Logic of Colonization."  In Culture, Entertainment and the Bible (ed. George Aichele; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000).
 
Sanneh, Lamin.  "Domesticating the Transcendent: the African Transformation of Christianity: Comparative Reflections on Ethnicity and Religious Mobilization in Africa."  In Bible Translation on the Threshold of the Twenty-First Century: Authority, Reception, Culture and Religion (ed. Athalya Brenner and Jan Willem van Henten; JSOTSup 353; Bible Translations in the Twenty-First Century 1; New York: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002) 70-85.
 
Segovia, Fernando F.  Decolonizing Biblical Studies: A View from the Margins.  Maryknoll, New York: Orbis, 2000.
 
--------.  Interpreting Beyond Borders, Bible and Postcolonialism 3.  Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000.
 
--------.  "Liberation Hermeneutics: Revisiting the Foundations in Latin America."  In Toward a New Heaven and a New Earth: Essay sin Honor of Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza (ed. Fernando F. Segovia; Maryknoll, New York: Orbis, 2003) 106-132.
 
--------.  "My Personal Voice: The Making of a Postcolonial Critic."  In Personal Voice in Biblical Interpretation (ed. Ingrid Rosa Kitzberger; New York: Routledge, 1999) 25-37.
 
--------.  "Postcolonial and Diasporic Criticism in Biblical Studies: Focus, Parameters, Relevance."  Studies in World Christianity 5 (2 1999) 177-195.
 
--------.  "In the Wake of Liberation: Postcolonial and Diasporic Criticisms."  In Caminos inexhauribles de la Palabra (las relecturas creativas en la Biblia y de la Biblia): ): homenaje de colegas y discipulos a J. Severino Croatto en sus 70 anos de vida, 40 de magisterio, y 25 en el ISEDET (ed. Guillermo Hansen; Buenos Aires: Grupo Editorial Lumen, 2000) 91-114.
 
Segovia, Fernando F. and Mary Ann Tolbert, eds.  Teaching the Bible: The Discourses and Politics of Biblical Pedagogy.  Maryknoll, New York: Orbis, 1998.
 
Stiebert, Johanna and Musa W. Dube, eds.  The Bible, Centres and Margins: Dialogues between Postcolonial African and British Biblical Scholars.  New York: T&T Clark, 2018.
 
Sugirtharajah, R. S.  Asian Biblical Hermeneutics and Postcolonialism: Contesting the Interpretations.  Maryknoll, New York: Orbis, 1998.
 
--------.  The Bible and the Third World: Precolonial, Colonial and Postcolonial Encounters.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
 
--------.  The Bible in Cultural Context: Postcolonial Theory and Practice.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
 
--------.  Postcolonial Criticism and Biblical Interpretation.  New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
 
--------.  Vernacular Hermeneutics, The Bible and Postcolonialism 2.  Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999.
 
Sugirtharajah, R. S., ed.  The Postcolonial Bible, The Bible and Postcolonialism 1.  Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998.
Broadbent, Ralph, Ivy George, David Jobling and Luise Schottroff.  "The Postcolonial Bible: Four Reviews."  Journal for the Study of the New Testament 74 (1999) 113-21.
 
Upkong, Justin S., Musa W. Dube, Gerald O. West, Alpheus Masoga, Norman K. Gottwald, Jeremy Punt, Tinyiko S. Maluleke and Vincent L. Wimbush.  Reading the Bible in the Global Village, GPBS 3.  Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2002.
 
Vander Stichele, Caroline and Todd Penner, eds.  Her Master's Tools? Feminist and Postcolonial Engagements of Historical-Critical Discourse, Society of Biblical Literature Global Perspectives on Biblical Scholarship 9.  Atlanta/Leiden: Society of Biblical Literature/Brill, 2005.
 
Weaver, J.  "From I-Hermeneutics to We-Hermeneutics: Native Americans and the Post-Colonial."  Semeia 75 (1996).
 
West, Gerald.  "Re-membering the Bible in South Africa: Reading Strategies in a Postcolonial Context."  Jian Dao 8 (1997) 37-62.
 
West, Gerald O. and Musa W. Dube, eds.  The Bible in Africa: Transactions, Trajectories, and Trends.  Leiden: Brill, 2000.
 
Wicker, Kathleen O'Brien.  "Teaching Feminist Biblical Studies in a Postcolonial Context."  In Searching the Scriptures, vol 1, A Feminist Introduction (ed. Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza; New York: Crossroad, 1993) 367-80.
 
Witvliet, Theo.  "Response to Lamin Sanneh, 'Domesticating the Transcendent: The African Transformation of Christianity'."  In Bible Translation on the Threshold of the Twenty-First Century: Authority, Reception, Culture and Religion (ed. Athalya Brenner and Jan Willem van Henten; JSOTSup 353; Bible Translations in the Twenty-First Century 1; New York: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002) 86-93.

 
Postcolonial Criticism of the New Testament
 
Aichele, George.  "The Imperial Bible."  In The Control of Biblical Meaning: Canon as Semiotic Mechanism (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Trinity Press International, 2001).
 
Angami, Zhodi.  Tribals, Empire and God: A Tribal Reading of the Birth of Jesus in Matthew's Gospel.   New York: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2017.
 
Cary, Norman R.  "Christus Mundi: The Jesus Figure in Postcolonial Literature."  Christianity and Literature 41 (1991) 39-59.
 
Choi, Jin Young.  Postcolonial Discipleship of Embodiment: An Asian and Asian American Feminist Reading of the Gospel of Mark, Postcolonialism and Religions.  New York:Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.
 
Coker, K. Jason.  James in Postcolonial Perspective: The Letter as Nativist Discourse.  Minneapolis: Fortress, 2015.
 
Dietrich, Walter.  The Bible in a World Context: An Experiment in Contextual Hermeneutics.   Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2002.
 
Dube, Musa.  "Reading for Decolonization (John 4:1-42)."  Semeia 75 (1996).
 
Dube, Musa W. and Jeffrey L. Staley, eds.  John and Postcolonialism: Travel, Space and Power, Bible and Postcolonialism 5.  Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002.
 
Keller, Catherine.  "The Breast, the Apocalypse, and the Colonial Journey."  JFSR 10:1 (1994) 53-72.
 
Kim, Jean  "'Uncovering Her Wickedness': An Inter(con)textual Reading of Revelation 17 from a Postcolonial Feminist Perspective."  Journal for the Study of the New Testament 73 (1999) 61-81.
 
Levine, Amy-Jill.  "Roundtable Discussion: Anti-Judaism and Postcolonial Biblical Interpretation. The Disease of Postcolonial New Testament Studies and the Hermeneutics of Healing."  JFSR 20:1 (2004).
 
Marchal, Joseph A.  " Imperial Intersections and Initial Inquiries: a Feminist, Postcolonial Analysis of Philippians."  JFSR 22:2 (2006).
 
McClintock, Anne.  "No Longer in a Future Heaven."  In Dangerous Liaisons: Gender, Nation and Postcolonial Perspectives (ed. Anne McClintock, Aamir Mufti and Ella Shohat; Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997) 89-112.
 
Segovia, Fernando F.  "Notes toward Refining the Postcolonial Optic."   Journal for the Study of the New Testament 75 (1999) 103-114.
 
Staley, Jeffrey L.  "Changing Women: Postcolonial Reflections on Acts 16:6-40."  Journal for the Study of the New Testament 73 (1999) 113-35.
 
Sugirtharajah, R. S.  "Imperial Critical Commentaries: Christian Discourse and Commentarial Writing in Colonial India."  Journal for the Study of the New Testament 73 (1999) 83-112.
 
Sugirtharajah, R. S., ed.  "Postcolonial Perspectives on the New Testament and Its Interpretation."  Journal for the Study of the New Testament 73 (1999).
 
Thompson, Leonard L.  The Book of Revelation: Apocalypse and Empire.   New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.
 

 
The Hebrew Bible & Empire
 
Aster, Shawn Zelig.  Reflections of Empire in Isaiah 1–39: Responses to Assyrian Ideology, Ancient Near East Monographs 19.  Atlanta: SBL Press, 2017.
 

 
The New Testament & Empire
 
Aiken, Ellen Bradshaw.  "Portraying the Temple in Stone and Text: The Arch of Titus and the Epistle to the Hebrews."  In Hebrews: Contemporary Methods-New Insights (ed. Gabriella Gelardini; Biblical Interpretation Series 75; Leiden: Brill, 2005).
 
Carter, Warren.  Matthew and Empire: Initial Explorations.  Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Trinity Press International, 2001.
 
Billings, Drew E.  Acts of the Apostles and the Rhetoric of Roman Imperialism.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017.
 
Fantin, Joseph D.  The Lord of the Entire World: Lord Jesus, a Challenge to Lord Caesar?, New Testament Monographs 31.  Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2011.
 
Grant, Robert M.  Paul in the Roman World: The Conflict at Corinth.  Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001.
 
Horsley, Richard A.  Paul and Empire: Religion and Power in Roman Imperial Society.  Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Trinity Press International, 1997.
 
Labahn, Michael and Outi Lehtipuu, eds. People under Power: Early Jewish and Christian Responses to the Roman Empire, Early Christianity and the Roman World.  Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2015.
 
Moore, Stephen D.  Untold Tales from the Book of Revelation: Sex and Gender, Empire and Ecology, Resources for Biblical Study 79.  Atlanta: SBL Press, 2014.
 
Novak, Ralph Martin.  Christianity and the Roman Empire: Background Texts.   Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Trinity Press International, 2001.
 
Seo, Pyung Soo.  Luke's Jesus in the Roman Empire and the Emperor in the Gospel of Luke.  Eugene, Oregon: Pickwick, 2015.
 
Sugirtharajah, R. S.  The Brahmin and His Bible: Rammohun Roy's Precepts of Jesus 200 Years On.  New York: T&T Clark, 2019.
 

 
Related Issues
 
Bailey, Randall C. and Tina Pippin, eds.  "Race, Class, and the Politics of Biblical Translation."  Semeia 76 (1996) 1-169.
 
Batalden, Stephen, Kathleen Cann and John Dean, eds.  Sowing the Word: The Cultural Impact of the British Foreign Bible Society 1804-2004, The Bible in the Modern World 3.  Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2004.
 
Boer, Roland, ed. A Vanishing Mediator? The Presence/Absence of the Bible in Postcolonialism, Semeia 88. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2001.
 
Burris, John P.  Exhibiting Religion: Colonialism and Spectacle at International Expositions 1851-1893, Studies in Religion and Culture.  Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2001.
 
Martin, Joel W.  "Indians, Contact, and Colonialism in the Deep South: Themes for a Postcolonial History of American Religion."  In Retelling US Religious History (ed. Thomas A. Tweed; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997) 149-80, 267-75.
 
McGeough, Kevin M.  The Ancient Near East in the Nineteenth Century Appreciations and Appropriations: III. Fantasy and Alternative Histories, Hebrew Bible Monographs 68.  Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2015.
 
Modood, Tariq and Pnina Werbner.  The Politics of Multiculturalism in the New Europe: Racism, Identity and Community.  London: Zed, 1997.
 
Sivertsev, Alexei M.  Judaism and Imperial Ideology in Late Antiquity.  New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011.
 
Stratton, Jon.  "The Beast of the Apocalypse: The Postcolonial Experience of the United States."  In Postcolonial America (ed. C. Richard King; Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2000) 21-64.
 
 

 
Resources
 
Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin, eds.  The Post-colonial Studies Reader.  New York: Routledge, 1995.
 
Galinsky, Karl.  Augustan Culture.  Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996.
 
Hawley, John C., ed.  Encyclopedia of Postcolonial Studies.  Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood, 2001.
 
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