This book brings together new approaches to the study of Sikh religion, culture and ethnicity being pursued in the diaspora by Sikh academics in western universities in Britain and North America. An important aspect of the volume is the diversity of topics that are engaged - including film and gender theory, theology, hermeneutics, deconstruction, semiotics and race theory - and brought to bear on the individual contributors' specialism within Sikh studies, thereby helping to explode previously static dichotomies such as insider vs. outsider or history vs. tradition. The volume should have strong appeal both to an academic market including students of politics, religious studies and South Asian studies, and to a more general English-speaking Sikh readership.

Christopher Shackle, Gurharpal Singh, Arvind-pal Singh Mandair

Chapter 1 Introduction: New Perspectives in Sikh Studies; Chapter 2 Canon Formation in the Sikh Tradition, Gurinder Singh Mann; Chapter 3 Eighteenth Century Khalsa Identity: Discourse, Praxis and Narrative, Jeevan Deol; Chapter 4 Thinking Differently about Religion and History: Issues for Sikh Studies, Arvind-pal Singh Mandair; Chapter 5 On the Hermeneutics of Sikh Thought and Praxis, Balbinder Bhogal; Chapter 6 Making Punjabi Literary History, Christopher Shackle; Chapter 7 The Mirror and the Sikh: The Transformation of Ondaatje's Kip, Nikky-Guninder Kaur Singh; Chapter 8 The Limits of 'Conventional Wisdom': Understanding Sikh Ethno-nationalism, Gurharpal Singh; Chapter 9 Imagining Punjab: Narratives of Nationhood and Homeland among the Sikh Diaspora, Darshan S. Tatla; Chapter 10 What Has a Whale Got to Do With It? A Tale of Pogroms and Biblical Allegories, Harjot Oberoi;