Critiquing Postmodernism in Contemporary Discourses of Race challenges
the critical emphasis on otherness in treatments of race in literary and
cultural studies. Sue J. Kim deftly argues that this treatment not only
perpetuates narrow identity politics, but obscures the political and
economic structures that shape issues of race in literary studies. Kim s
revelatory book shows how reading authors through their identity ends up
neglecting both complex historical contexts and aesthetic forms. This
comparative study calls for a reconsideration of the bases for critical
engagement and a reading ethics that melds the best of historicist and
formalist approaches to literature.