Acknowledgments
This book would not be possible without the ever-growing support I receive both in academia and beyond. I have been fortunate to have had my philosophical curiosity nurtured by various people over the years, and I am grateful to each and every one of them. I am indebted to more people than I have the opportunity to thank individually, however two people in particular have offered me guidance when it was most needed, calling me into philosophy through a shared interest in the writings of Simone de Beauvoir and encouraging me to push beyond those writings. My sincerest thanks to Emilia Angelova and Lorraine Code, for all their support.
I was provided institutional support from various universities and organizations while working on this manuscript. Foremost in my development were the resources made available at York University (Toronto) and the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Notably, my colleagues heard various articulations of my project and offered me constructive feedback. Many thanks in particular to Shannon Sullivan, Eddy Souffrant, Danielle Boaz, Janaka Bowman Lewis, Robin James, Sonya Ramsey, Katie Hogan, Michael Kelly, Alice MacLachlan, Adriel M. Trott, and Antonio Calcagno.
The arguments that appear in this book have been reworked from material presented at various conferences and nourished by participation in a number of academic spaces, including the Historical Materialism Conference, the Caribbean Philosophical Association, Philosophy Born of Struggle, philoSOPHIA, the American Comparative Literature Association, the Canadian Philosophical Association, the Pittsburgh Summer Symposium in Contemporary Philosophy, and the Feminist Decolonial Politics Workshops in Montreal and Charlotte.
To the wonderful editorial team at the University of Minnesota Press, especially Danielle Kasprzak, Anne Carter, and Leah Pennywark, I thank you. The comments I received from the external reviewers were tremendously helpful in reworking this project, and I am appreciative of the time and effort they put into helping me improve this project. My sincerest thanks to Sarah Kizuk for her tireless effort put toward producing the index. All errors are my own.
This work is also indebted to community members who offered invaluable wisdom regarding the connections between theory and praxis, and from whom I continue to learn. My heartfelt thanks go to Ash Williams, Jamie Marsicano, Myka Johnson, Aman Agah, and Sam Poler.
To my community in Charlotte, without whom this project would never have made it to fruition, I thank you. Danielle Boaz, Sarah Pollock, Janaka Bowman Lewis, Consuelo Salas, Daniela Recabarren, Tamara Johnson, Rachael Forester, and Erica Lennon, thank you for the faith you have in me. To Joseph Jordan, Alex Leferman, Dhruv Jain, and Amrit Mandzak-Heer, thank you for reading drafts of my earlier work and for your comments. To Karen Robertson and Suzanne McCullagh, our philosophical discussions over numerous cups of coffee were formative for this project. I appreciate you.
To my family, for the years of encouragement, for teaching me how to tend a garden and portage a canoe—there are not enough words to express how much your support means to me. My heartfelt thanks to my parents, Linda and Michel Paquette, and my siblings Dominique, Katrina, and David. And to all the strong women in my life who have provided me with strength, I thank you.
Most important, I thank my spouse, partner, and friend, Andrea. You opened up worlds to me that I had not known were even possible. You encouraged me through every step of this difficult process. This project would not have been possible without your feedback and your support. Thank you for joining me on this journey.