Acknowledgments

This project was conceptualized in the years immediately following 9/11. The urgent need to critique the ways in which the United States wages war and stakes its claims to empire in the post–Cold War era has motivated me over this last decade. My political investments and interdisciplinary approach to thinking about U.S. humanitarian militarism, race, and imperialism have been profoundly shaped by ongoing conversations with faculty and friends in UC San Diego’s (UCSD) literature department, where I was a graduate student. As my adviser there, Lisa Lowe was, and continues to be, an inspiration for the kind of intellectually rigorous yet compassionate scholar and teacher I hope to become one day. My admiration and appreciation for Lisa as a politically committed thinker, and for her unique generosity of spirit that lifts up young scholars, have only grown with the passage of time. I am deeply indebted to her ongoing mentorship, and thankful for her steadfast belief in my scholarship. Her advice to me to think nonintuitively centrally informs this work. At UCSD I was also fortunate to work with an incredible committee: Winnie Woodhull, Shelley Streeby, Judith Halberstam, and Martha Lampland. I additionally want to thank Denise da Silva, who organized a reading group that raised questions with which I continue to struggle in my scholarship, as well as Emily Cheng, Chris Guzaitis, and Heidi Hoechst.

Since leaving UCSD, my research and writing has benefited from the support and guidance of remarkable colleagues at a number of institutions and departments. I am grateful to Lisa Parks for serving as my mentor during a postdoctoral fellowship year in UC Santa Barbara’s film and media studies department, and for introducing me to an innovative group of scholars working on Central and Eastern European culture. At the State University of New York (SUNY) Stony Brook’s Department of Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies, I am especially thankful to Ira Livingston, Krin Gabbard, and Jackie Reich. Saba Mahmood, who was my mentor for the President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship at UC Berkeley, helped me to develop my thinking on religious difference as I began the long process of turning my dissertation into a book. My year at UC Berkeley would not have been the same without the input of my writing group members, Kalindi Vora, Kim Tallbear, and Elly Teman.

I was able to complete this book thanks to the generosity of friends and colleagues at UC Santa Cruz, which has been an intellectually stimulating institutional home for me these last five years. Felicity Schaeffer is an exceptional comrade in the feminist studies department. Her keen insights and willingness to read drafts at the last moment have helped me many times. Anjali Arondekar and Gina Dent organized a manuscript workshop that pushed me to reconceptualize the project in productive ways at just the right time. I am grateful to Amelie Hastie and Wlad Godzich for their participation and comments during that workshop. I also want to thank the rest of my feminist studies colleagues, Bettina Aptheker, Karen Barad, Carla Freccero, Lisbeth Haas, and Marcia Ochoa, who inspire me through their scholarship, activism, and teaching, and my feminist studies students, for their commitment to making a better world. Outside of feminist studies, Mayanthi Fernando, Caetlin Benson-Allott, and Meghan Moodie, who began their careers at UC Santa Cruz the same year I did, helped me to orient myself. Our ongoing friendships and work together continue to be meaningful. My participation in the UCSC Human Rights working group was critical for my thinking in the final chapter. I especially thank Rosa-Linda Fregoso, Shelley Grabe, and Sylvanna Falcon for inviting me to join. I am also grateful to have friends in the film and digital media department, especially Shelley Stamp, Irene Luzstig, and Soraya Murray.

A number of grants and fellowships provided me with the time and resources to write this book. Funding in 2010–2011 from the UC Humanities Research Institute to form a working group, “Imperial Legacies, Postsocialist Contexts,” proved crucial as I developed a frame for the research I had gathered. Conversations with Kalindi Vora, the group’s coconvener, and Kristie Dorr, Vera Fennel, Grace Hong, Julietta Hua, Anita Starosta, and other members reminded me that collaborations tend to produce the most innovative writing and thinking. At UC Santa Cruz, the Faculty Research Grant made it possible for me to return to the TV News Archive at Vanderbilt University, while the Institute for Humanities Research Faculty Fellowship offered invaluable course relief that enabled me to complete revisions. I am also thankful to the Hellman Fellows Program and the Center for New Racial Studies for funding research for this book.

My experience at the University of Minnesota Press has been a rewarding one. It was a pleasure to work with Danielle Kasprzak, who is a fantastic editor and an engaged guide at the press. I appreciate her commitment to interdisciplinary and unconventional work. I am also grateful to Grace Hong and Roderick Ferguson for seeing the book’s potential in the broader field of race and ethnic studies, and for including me in their series Difference Incorporated. Grace has been an amazing interlocutor as she steered the book toward publication. Her discerning advice and encouragement enabled me to remain enthusiastic about the project as I completed revisions. I am exceptionally fortunate to have benefited from Fatima El-Tayeb’s brilliance as a reader. Her incisive suggestions motivated me to reenvision the manuscript’s trajectory and provided a blueprint for making this a much better book than it would have been otherwise. Katarzyna Marciniak also carefully read and commented on the manuscript, and I am thankful to her for believing in my work.

I could not have finished this book without the friendship of Julietta Hua and Kalindi Vora. I cannot thank them enough for thinking and talking with me about the ideas contained within it over these many years, and for staying in good humor in spite of reading multiple drafts of this manuscript. Julie’s keen ability to see the big picture—and to make any revisions, no matter how big or small, seem manageable—helped me tremendously. Her talents for working with a project on its own terms are unparalleled. Kalindi’s gift for reminding me to keep imagination, fantasy, and “dreaminess” alive in our work continually revitalizes my intellectual and political commitments. I look forward to continuing our collaborations in the years to come.

I am lucky to have an amazing network of friends who provided emotional support, including Liz Boschee Nagahara, Elizabeth DeWitt, and Kathryn Eigen. A special thanks goes to Kathryn, who patiently read through all of the chapters. Finally, I want to thank my family for their love and humor, for reading and asking the hard questions about numerous incarnations of the manuscript, and for helping me to reimagine what this work might mean in the wider world: Ljiljana, Radoslav, Vesna, Gordana, and Nikki.