Acknowledgments

The research for this book began many years ago, and the project has taken various forms rooted in different locations and communities. As such, more people made this work possible than we have room to list. Jason Weidemann welcomed this book at the University of Minnesota Press, and we would like to thank him for his support and conviction about the project. The insights of two anonymous reviewers helped crystallize our thinking, and we appreciate their intellectual generosity. Shiloh Krupar is grateful for the ongoing camaraderie, unassailable humor, and inspirational work of C. Greig Crysler, Sarah Kanouse, Jenna Loyd, Kate Chandler, Jason Moore and Diana Gildea, Rebecca Lave, the Administration, and Michele Pred. At Georgetown University, she thanks the intellectual capaciousness of the Culture and Politics program and its incredible students and network of CULP-minded colleagues. Nadine Ehlers could not ask for a better set of colleagues at the University of Sydney. In particular, Melinda Cooper, Dinesh Wadiwel, Sonja Van Wichelen, and Rebecca Scott Bray have been formidable interlocutors and offered an amazingly supportive environment.

Each of the chapters here owes a debt of thanks to a range of individuals. In relation to our work on hope, Bob Carey continues to be a major inspiration. Our research on targeting has benefited from the opportunities and insights shared by Wendy Cheng, Rashad Shabazz, Sara H. Smith, Pavithra Vasudevan, and Laura Liu. We are thankful to Melinda Cooper and Cathy Waldby for advancing our thinking about the affirmation to thrive and for sage advice about the book as a whole. Finally, research on greening the afterlife was supported by cultural geographies editor Dydia DeLyser, Dinesh Wadiwel, the research assistance of Ivy Otradovec, and the staff at the Congressional Cemetery in Washington, D.C., and at Anderson McQueen Funeral Home in St. Petersburg, Florida.

We’re grateful for the opportunities we’ve had to present parts of our research collaboratively and individually at conferences, including the American Studies Association and the American Association of Geographers, and an intensive—and incredibly generative—book forum hosted by the Biopolitics of Science Research Network at the University of Sydney in 2017.

The research for this book was supported by a number of small grants. At Georgetown, Shiloh was the recipient of several School of Foreign Service semester-based and summer grants that enabled her progress on the book; the FSF MAPWISELY grant funded her travel for the book workshop in Sydney. At the University of Sydney, Nadine was supported by the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Research Support Scheme, the School of Social and Political Sciences Conference Funding Scheme, and various other avenues of research assistance.

On a personal note, Nadine would like to thank Shiloh more than anyone. This work—and the various forms it has taken over the years—has been possible only because of an initial serendipity involving an orange dress. Cowriter, co-conspirator, and fierce friend, Shiloh has pushed my thinking in directions I didn’t know existed. To Duncan, Imogen, and Maiya Ehlers, my indomitable grandmother, Domna Daciw, and to Kirsty and Phoebe Nowlan, Clare Armitage, Arabella Hayes, Donette Francis, and Leslie Hinkson, thank you for being my anchors.

Shiloh sends her deepest gratitude to Nadine: our intellectual companionship and friendship have made (academic) life inhabitable when it is not and galvanized an uncompromising interdisciplinarity and commitment to critique that will endure through my lifetime. Special thanks also to Joshua McDonald for his infectious wit, intellect, musical fraternizing, and editorial skills; the National Toxic Land/Labor Conservation Service; Calamity Row; D.C. geographers; Wendy Morrison; Chris Lehmann; Joe McGill and Astra Rooney; Harlan, Francis, Grummitch, and Harriet; the late Allan Pred; Jason and Carmen Krupar; and my parents, Joseph and Karen Krupar, for their inexhaustible generosity, dynamic minds, and delight in the absurd.

When the book is at its best, it is because of this generous support network. Any errors or misunderstandings in this volume are ours alone.