Sikh Religion, Culture and Ethnicity

This book brings together new approaches to the study of Sikh religion, culture and ethnicity being pursued in the diaspora by Sikh academics in western universities in Britain and North America. An important aspect of the volume is the diversity of topics that are engaged - including film and gender theory, theology, hermeneutics, deconstruction, semiotics and race theory - and brought to bear on the individual contributors' specialism within Sikh studies, thereby helping to explode previously static dichotomies such as insider vs. outsider or history vs. tradition. The volume should have strong appeal both to an academic market including students of politics, religious studies and South Asian studies, and to a more general English-speaking Sikh readership. Cover Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Table of Contents Contributors Acknowledgements 1. Introduction: New Perspectives in Sikh Studies 2. Canon Formation in the Sikh Tradition 3. Eighteenth Century Khalsa Identity: Discourse, Praxis and Narrative 4. Thinking Differently about Religion and History: Issues for Sikh Studies 5. On the Hermeneutics of Sikh Thought and Praxis 6. Making Punjabi Literary History 7. The Mirror and the Sikh: the Transformation of Ondaatje's Kip 8. The Limits of 'Conventional Wisdom': Understanding Sikh Ethno-nationalism 9. Imagining Punjab: Narratives of Nationhood and Homeland among the Sikh Diaspora 10. What Has a Whale Got to Do With It? A Tale of Pogroms and Biblical Allegories Bibliography Index