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Biblical interpretation in the contemporary context of globalisation faces a variety of challenges. This thesis addresses the challenges presented to the discipline by the incorporation of poststructuralism, postcolonialism, and liberation theologies, particularly the problem of interpretive ghettoisation and the ethics of contemporary biblical interpretation. It proposes one possible answer to the question of how the field of biblical hermeneutics can move beyond the segregation passively encouraged by subjectivity and self-determination toward the integration of academic and vernacular hermeneutics in the interests of justice for the dominated and the reconstitution of the dominant. This thesis first presents the interpretive theories of Edward W. Said, addresses the major criticisms of his work, and proceeds to discuss the adaptation of his concept of contrapuntal reading to the interpretation of biblical texts. Second, it presents a survey of current work in the field which attempts to overcome the gap between academic and vernacular hermeneutics and critiques these approaches in light of Said’s concepts. Third, it presents the book of Job as an appropriate context in which to explore the possibilities of contrapuntal hermeneutics. This section analyses various academic and vernacular interpretations of the book of Job and places these interpretations in contrapuntal dialogue over the course of three chapters. The first of these chapters explores the possibilities for dialogue between those interpretations that view suffering as a key theme in the book and those that do not; the second chapter explores interpretations of the book of Job and the issue of suffering in various Euro-North American psychological contexts and in various African contexts of HIV/AIDS; and the third chapter juxtaposes academic and vernacular interpretations of the book of Job in various Asian contexts. Finally, the study closes with an argument for pedagogical reform based upon the ethical and interpretive insights of contrapuntal hermeneutics.

Ce mémoire examine la trajectoire d'un débat conceptuel ayant marqué le champ des théories du nationalisme. Il s'agit de l'affrontement intellectuel portant sur le problème de l'articulation du racisme et du nationalisme. Dans cette recherche, six contributions majeures de théoriciens du nationalisme seront à l'étude. Il s'agit d'écrits de : Tom Nairn, Anthony Smith, Benedict Anderson, Paul Gilroy, Étienne Balibar et Edward Said. À travers une analyse historique, nous verrons comment chacune de ces interventions modifie ou réaffirme les conventions qui régissent le débat. Cette étude montre l'existence de trois moments, définis par un traitement similaire du problème de la relation du racisme au nationalisme. Ces ressemblances concernent avant tout les préoccupations et les questionnements au fondement des réflexions. Dans un premier temps, à la fin des années 1970 et au début des années 1980, malgré certains différends, la démarche des théoriciens du nationalisme comporte d'importantes similitudes. Ils s'intéressent au racisme et au nationalisme d'une façon globale, puis ils recherchent avant tout l'origine historique de ces phénomènes. Lors d'un second moment, à la fin des années 1980, les contributeurs au débat se penchent sur les représentations sociales constitutives du nationalisme et du racisme, puis ils examinent la formation des frontières symboliques de la nation. En troisième lieu, au cours des années 1990, l'expérience historique de l'impérialisme devient centrale pour la compréhension du lien entre le racisme et le nationalisme, notamment en ce qui concerne leur forme contemporaine. ______________________________________________________________________________

This dissertation establishes a category of early Soviet “exodic” literature, which consists of works published in Yiddish or Russian between 1917 and 1935. Reading together texts by Peretz Markish, Andrei Platonov, Moyshe Kulbak, Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov, Yiddish texts are placed on equal footing with Russian texts to underscore the singular role of Jews in the early Soviet period and demonstrate shared anxieties and practices of resistance to hegemony among groups seemingly separated by language and culture. These anxieties and modes of resistance are what make the Soviet exodic a literature of revolution as it grapples with the complexity of the Soviet period and Soviet identity formation. Drawing upon political theorist Michael Walzer and his text Exodus and Revolution as well as the critical response from Edward Said, this dissertation uses the biblical book of Exodus as a theoretical matrix for the identification and elaboration of narrative sequences and thematic material that constitute a revolutionary genre and applies it to the study of early Soviet literature. Because they are written and published between 1917 and 1935, exodic texts are positioned between the Bolshevik Revolution and the crystallization of high Stalinism. Therefore, they are situated within what is commonly known as the “interwar period.” Such a definition relies upon absence (the absence of war). The Soviet exodic provides this historical moment and its attending texts a positive definition in deference to the revolutionary framework that guides it. This dissertation also considers how the texts enact revolution with the help of critical and queer theory, most notably Sara Ahmed’s Queer Phenomenology and Mary Rubenstein’s Pantheologies. These theoretical supports serve to articulate the various queer—that is, non-normative—ways that the selected texts engage pluralism to resist ideological regimes and forces of control as they re-evaluate social and political categories and norms. Queer theory also serves to express the entanglement of self, other, and place, and in so doing, brings ecological anxieties to the fore. Resistance in the Soviet exodic thus takes shape through the queering or misalignment of categories like space, language, or gender performance, and culminates in the figure of the Soviet trickster, who, by means of their unfinalizability, is the embodiment of revolution.