New book! Decolonizing Josiah

Uriah Y. Kim, Decolonizing Josiah: Toward a Postcolonial Reading of the Deuteronomistic History (Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2005)

This is a passionate postcolonial reading of Josiah that, on the one hand, critiques the failure of biblical studies to come to terms with its colonialist legacy and, on the other hand, connects the world of biblical studies to the world at large.

How is it possible, Kim asks, given the all-encompassing sway of the colonialist reading of the Bible, to understand Josiah in other than colonialist terms? His answer: the historical imagination, making unfettered use of the tools of the critical historian, must be informed by the experience of those who have lived as the other, as the colonized, as not at home in their own land - which means, for Kim, the experience of being Asian American. The intellectual use of this experience creates his distinctive postcolonial perspective, as he draws attention to the connection between Western imperialism and the production of Western knowledge. Specifically, the author reads the story of Josiah intercontextually with the experience of Asian Americans from the space of liminality.

Uriah Kim is Professor of Hebrew Bible at Hartford Seminary, Hartford, CT.