What Is Asian American Biblical Hermeneutics? Reading the New Testament (Intersections: Asian and Pacific American Transcultural Studies, 32)

'Liew is one of the most articulate, creative and sophisticated biblical scholars in North America. What Is Asian American Biblical Hermeneutics? has not caused me to question that judgment. A set of provocative questions, arguments, issues, and problems, the book opens a window onto what it means for human beings to try to negotiate a rather complex contemporary world, with evidence of increasingly blurred but also thick ideological and social-cultural boundaries and overlapping but also recognizable and isolable identity formations. That Liew does this by using and bringing together the category'Asian American'and the phenomenon of the reading of'the Bible'as sharp analytical wedge is all the more fascinating. This impressive book represents the collapse of the center and a major shift in orientation to the peripheries. It is a major achievement and a major challenge.'—Vincent L. Wimbush, Claremont Graduate University'A groundbreaking achievement! Dr. Liew uses his amazing breadth of scholarship to challenge Eurocentrism in biblical studies and secularism in Asian American studies at once. Like Gender Trouble, The Future of an Illusion, and other original work, this book will become a classic in Asian American biblical hermeneutics, setting the terms of debate for years to come. After Liew, reading the New Testament will never be the same again.'—Kwok Pui-lan, Episcopal Divinity School, Cambridge, MassachusettsThis is the first single-authored book on Asian American biblical interpretation. It covers all of the major genres within the New Testament and broadens biblical hermeneutics to cover not only the biblical texts, but also Asian American literature and current films and events like genome research and September 11. Despite its range, the book is organized around three foci: methodology (the distinguishing characteristics or sensibilities of Asian American biblical hermeneutics), community (the politics of inclusion and exclusion), and agency. The work intentionally affirms Asian America as a panethnic coalition while acknowledging the differences within it. In other words, it attempts to balance Asian American panethnicity and heterogeneity, or coalition building and identity politics. "Liew is one of the most articulate, creative and sophisticated biblical scholars in North America. What Is Asian American Biblical Hermeneutics? has not caused me to question that judgment. A set of provocative questions, arguments, issues, and problems, the book opens a window onto what it means for human beings to try to negotiate a rather complex contemporary world, with evidence of increasingly blurred but also thick ideological and social-cultural boundaries and overlapping but also recognizable and isolable identity formations. That Liew does this by using and bringing together the category "Asian American" and the phenomenon of the reading of "the Bible" as sharp analytical wedge is all the more fascinating. This impressive book represents the collapse of the center and a major shift in orientation to the peripheries. It is a major achievement and a major challenge." Vincent L. Wimbush, Claremont Graduate University "A groundbreaking achievement! Dr. Liew uses his amazing breadth of scholarship to challenge Eurocentrism in biblical studies and secularism in Asian American studies at once. Like Gender Trouble, The Future of an Illusion, and other original work, this book will become a classic in Asian American biblical hermeneutics, setting the terms of debate for years to come. After Liew, reading the New Testament will never be the same again."Kwok Pui-lan, Episcopal Divinity School, Cambridge, Massachusetts This is the first single-authored book on Asian American biblical interpretation. It covers all of the major genres within the New Testament and broadens biblical hermeneutics to cover not only the biblical texts, but also Asian American literature and current films and events like genome research and September 11. Despite its range, the book is organized around three methodology (the distinguishing characteristics or sensibilities of Asian American biblical hermeneutics), community (the politics of inclusion and exclusion), and agency. The work intentionally affirms Asian America as a panethnic coalition while acknowledging the differences within it. In other words, it attempts to balance Asian American panethnicity and heterogeneity, or coalition building and identity politics. Contents ......Page 8 Preface......Page 10 1 What Is Asian American Biblical Hermeneutics? Medi(t)ations on and for a Conversation......Page 18 2 Reading with Yin Yang Eyes: Negotiating the Ideological Dilemma of a Chinese American Biblical Hermeneutics......Page 35 3 Ambiguous Admittance: Consent and Descent in John’s Community of “Upward” Mobility......Page 51 4 Overlapping (His)Stories: Reading Acts in Chinese America......Page 74 5 Redressing Bodies in Corinth: Racial/Ethnic Politics and Religious Difference in the Context of Empire......Page 92 6 Melancholia in Diaspora: Reading Paul’s Psycho-Political Operatives in 1 Corinthians......Page 115 7 Immigrants and Intertexts: Biblical In(ter)ventions in Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s Dictee......Page 132 8 Telling Times in (Asian) America: Extraordinary Poetics, Everyday Politics, and Endless Paradoxes......Page 151 Notes......Page 164 Works Cited......Page 224 Index......Page 268