Introducing this collection of essays, Francoise Lionnet and Shu-mei Shih argue that looking back--investigating the historical, intellectual, and political entanglements of contemporary academic disciplines--offers a way for scholars in the humanities to move critical debates forward. They describe how disciplines or methodologies that seem distinct today emerged from overlapping intellectual and political currents in the 1960s and early 1970s, in the era of decolonization, the U.S. civil rights movement, and antiwar activism. While both American ethnic studies programs and "French theory"...

Praised by Voltaire and admired by Pushkin, Evariste Parny (1753-1814) was born on the island of Reunion, which is east of Madagascar, and educated in France. His life as a soldier and government administrator allowed him to travel to Brazil, Africa, and India. Though from the periphery of France's colonial empire, he ultimately became a member of the Academie Francaise. Despite his reaching that pinnacle of respectability, some of his poetry was banned after his death. This edition includes poems from the Poesies erotiques and Elegies, which established Parny's reputation; the Chansons...