"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 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 comprehensive study calls for a reconsideration of the bases for critical engagement and a reading ethics that melds the best of historical and formalist approaches to literature."--BOOK JACKET.