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I always read acknowledgments first, in large part to see how a scholar has dealt with his or her own belatedness in such a hyperconventionalized genre. I doubt I can provide much formal innovation, but it is one of the great pleasures of my life as a writer finally to record the debts I have been so shamelessly accruing over the years. I continue to marvel at how many of my interests were formed by my undergraduate mentors: John Smyth, Richard Tristman, and Rush Welter. As an institution, the Bennington I knew was purged out of existence more than a decade ago; as an ideal, it remains ever with me. In more recent years, my habits of thought have been shaped in important and multifarious ways by Cathy Gallagher, Susan Hegeman, Carla Hesse, Peter Sahlins, and James Turner. I have also benefited greatly from the timely encouragement and smart questions of Jim Chandler, Helen Deutsch, Ian Duncan, Frank Felsenstein , Bob Griffin, Nick Howe, Paul Hunter, Matt Kinservik, Jayne Lewis, Jim Phelan, Steven Zwicker, and the virtual community of c-l. While I have never had the good fortune to meet Gérard Genette, Franco Moretti, or Carol Rose, this book would have been conceptually far thinner (and perhaps not even possible) without the sparks thrown off by their provocative and far-reaching ideas. Finally, I am grateful to Jerry Singerman, Leah Price, and another still anonymous reader for the University of Pennsylvania Press for the care with which they ensured that my work would not appear before it had been fully cooked. The warmth, wit, and bartending skills of my friends (who often double as colleagues) have collectively enabled me to avoid a surprisingly large number of anxieties endemic to academic life. If of making books there is no end, there is also no end to the friendships (and Homeric catalogs of friendships) which book-making can create. Thanks are especially due to Lawrie Balfour, Alison Beck, Brad Berens, Kathi Inman Berens, Caroline Bicks, Larry Chernikoff, Cate Corcoran, Frank Donoghue, Jared Gardner, Kevis Goodman, Beth Hewitt, Craig Huntley, Robin Judd, Seb and Janette Knowles, Larry Kutchen, Marlene Longenecker, Sandra Macpherson, Diana Maltz, Craige Roberts, Edye Sanford, Maura Spiegel, Kenny Steinman, Simon Acknowledgments Stern, Karl and Heather Thiel, Roxann Wheeler, Luke Wilson, and Gary Wolf. Whenever I write, I keep my mother-in-law, Mary Morton, at the back of my mind in an attempt to ensure that the stakes of my argument will be readily apparent to smart readers outside the academy. And the commitment of my parents, Don and Sue Brewer, both to me and to higher education more generally, has never been anything short of remarkable. Indeed, their generous support, along with that of the University of California, Berkeley, the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, the Mabelle McLeod Lewis Fund, and The Ohio State University, has granted me the rare privilege of having almost enough time to write. The generic requirements of the acknowledgments page mandate that, like the wine at Cana, the best be saved for last. I can do no more than to refer the gentle reader to my dedication. My life is incalculably sweeter because of my darling wife and children, my every moment devoted to devising our further adventures together.  Acknowledgments ...

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