Acknowledgments

I decided to write this because I was frustrated. And, too, because I was seduced. Chandler’s text pissed me off with its esoteric writing—the kind of writing I actually tend to love—and it also, because of this, seduced me into grappling with it intensely, with its wondrousness and its omissions. His writing invited me to engage it and to critique it on its own behalf. So, I thank you, Nahum, if I may.

Too, I must thank Jason Weidmann, who supported the submission of this manuscript from the very beginning, and Leah Pennywark, who graciously and kindly talked me through its conceptual ideas and gifted me with crucial sources to strengthen my argument. And how could I not thank those who exercised these ideas with me and shared in my frustration: Jesse and Terrell and Biko, who all, in different ways, cowrote my thoughts alongside me; and, by discursive proxy, Denise Ferreira da Silva, whose work is, always, indispensable.

And to all those students (namely, Jack, with those three-plus-hour Zoom chats) and colleagues and audience members who listened to me ramble, spewing everything from nonsense to gold: you are in this, too, and you have mattered, at the very least, profoundly, to me.