The politics of heaven : women, gender, and empire in the study of Paul

Abstract

Introduction: Interpretation at the intersection of methods -- Starting points and parameters : feminist and postcolonial analysis Paul, Philippians, and the plan of this Book -- Histories of interpretation and "people's history" in Pauline studies -- Initial inquiries and imperial intersections in interpretation -- Gaps, erasures, and conflicts -- Procedure and precedent -- People's possibilities : subaltern history and problems of perspective -- People's history and Pauline studies -- Back to the biblical : antiquity and feminist, postcolonial approaches -- A hymn within and a heavenly politeuma -- -- A heavenly politeuma and a hymn within rhetorical interactions and Pauline interpretation : a postcolonial Paul -- Does this text encourage travel to distant and inhabited lands and how does it justify itself? -- How does this text construct difference : is there dialogue and liberating interdependence or condemnation of all that is foreign? -- Does this text employ gender and divine representations to construct relationships of subordination and domination? -- Initial connections and conclusions -- The rhetorics of imitation and postcolonial theories of mimicry -- Imitation rhetorics in Paul and in Pauline scholarship -- The promise and perils of postcolonial mimicry -- Post-poning any undue celebrations : criticisms, cautions, and calibrations of postcolonial mimicry -- Resistance, risks, and replications : on the limits of mimicry for a feminist postcolonial analysis -- Women in the contact zone -- Contact zone and transcultural interactions -- Pauline travels and the Philippian contact zone -- Concluding reflections and connections