From Around the Globe: Secular Authors and Biblical Perspectives

From Around the Globe features twenty-six essays from international scholars across various disciplines who explore a broad range of contemporary and cutting-edge connections between the Bible and global literature. The scholars' fields of study range from classical western literature to multicultural tracts, including a broad variety of literary genres. The scholars use their treatments of literature, criticism, and the Bible to analyze connections among them from a global perspective. Many writers from industrialized nations and the developing world have employed the Bible as an analogue, or have drawn allusions from it to compose their prose, poetry, drama, and other documents. Most often, these authors draw clear references to biblical matter. Other authors are more guarded and camouflaged. Some non-western writers might even be unaware of the allusions they generate, and western writers, while delving into allegorical shadows, may unwittingly layer in biblical references to their works. This collection engages in a reassessment of authors' biblical references, intentional or unintentional.

Table of Contents:
Part 1 Acknowledgements Part 2 Preface Part 3 Section I: The United States and Canada Chapter 4 The Bible as Babel: the Suspicions of Dorothy L. Sayers Chapter 5 Yvette Nolan's Job's Wife: The Center's Reaction Chapter 6 Djuna Barnes's Nightwood: The Biblical Perspective Chapter 7 Djuna Barnes's Revision of Biblical Genealogies in her novel Ryder Part 8 Section 2: Europe Chapter 9 The Measure of Un-marked Vows in Two Early Modern English Dramas Chapter 10 The Country House Poem and the Christian Ethos Chapter 11 Biblical Allusion Through an Ironic Filter in Swift's Gulliver's Travels Chapter 12 Members of God's Body: Charles Williams's Theory of Co-inherence Chapter 13 Intimations of Religious Mysticism in Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse Part 14 Section 3: Asia and the Middle East Chapter 15 Kneading the Texts Through the Practice of Misquotation Chapter 16 Biblical Walls and Textual Enclosures as Borders in Kipling's Short Narrative Chapter 17 Songs of Ascents and Descents: Israeli Modernist Poets and the Hebrew Bible Chapter 18 Justice and the Old/New Jewish Nation in Shulamith Hareven's Thirst: The Desert Trilogy Chapter 19 New History, New Language - Dimensions of Biblical Intertextuality in Rachel's Poetry Part 20 Section 4: Africa Chapter 21 Postcoloniality, Feminism and theBible in Ngugi's A Grain of Wheat Chapter 22 Missionary Movements, Imperialism & Christianity Part 23 Section 5: African American Chapter 24 The Theology and Poetics of Sin and Punishment in Go Tell it on the Mountain Chapter 25 Growing Up Black and Gay in the Heartof the Bible Belt: Randall Kenan's Perspective on Fundamentalist Religion in A Visitation of Spirits Chapter 26 She Had No Self Left: The Sacrificial Love of Miriam in D. H. Lawrence's Sons and Lovers and Hagar in Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon Chapter 27 Demonizing the Devil: the Postlapserian World of Zora Neal Hurston's Sweat Part 28 Section 6: The Caribbean and Latin America Chapter 29 Colonialism and Capitalism: 'The Love of Money is the Root of All Evil' in Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea Chapter 30 'What else God make women for?' Subverting the Politics and Spirituality of the Patriarchs in The Hills of Hebron Chapter 31 Go Bring Down Goliath: Biblical Reappropriation and Counter-Discoursein Derek Walcott's Ti-Jean and His Brothers Chapter 32 Judaizing the Secret Practices: Religion and Crypto-Jews in Mexico Through Kathleen Achalá's Spirits of the Ordinary Part 33 About the Contributors Part 34 Index

About the Author :
Seodial Frank H. Deena is Professor of Multicultural and Postcolonial Literature and Criticism at East Carolina University where he coordinates the Graduate Multicultural Literature Program. He teaches multicultural, world, postcolonial, African American, and Caribbean literature, as well as the Bible as literature. He received his Ph.D. in Literature and Criticism from Indiana University of Pennsylvania and his undergraduate degree from the University of Guyana. His previous works include, Canonization, Colonization, Decolonization: A Comparative Study of Political and Critical Works By Minority Writers, and Situating Caribbean Literature and Criticism in Multicultural and Postcolonial Studies, is forthcoming in 2007. Karoline Szatek is a Shakespeare and early modern scholar, visiting professor, and contributing editor to The Shakespeare Newsletter. Szatek, who received her Ph.D. in Literature and Criticism from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, teaches Shakespeare and other early modern literature at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth. Her book, The Discourse of Space in Early Modern Pastoral Drama, is forthcoming.