Bodies and Books: Reading and the Fantasy of Communion in Nineteenth-Century America

Acknowledgments

h Acknowledgments This book—a very long time in the making—has been aided by the support of numerous institutions and individuals. For their help in the very early stages of this project, I thank Cathy Davidson, Michael Moon,Toril Moi, Karla Holloway, and Michael Hardt. I am especially grateful to Jan Radway, who first introduced me to the discipline of the history of the book and whose own work provided me with a model of rigorous, meaningful, and accessible scholarship. My work was further encouraged by the support of the English Department at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, where I spent three enjoyable years, and by my wonderful colleagues in the English Department and in the Women’s and Gender Studies Program at the University of Colorado Denver. I am grateful for a year-long fellowship at the Center for the Humanities and the Arts at the University of Colorado Boulder and for the sponsorship of the Dean’s Office of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at UCD. For his support for this project from the very beginning, I thank Jerry Singerman at the University of Pennsylvania Press. I also thank Caroline Winschel, Alison Anderson, and Marian Rogers for their keen editorial insights as well as my research assistant, Amanda Hardman, for her excellent and patient work in formatting and indexing this study. Earlier versions of portions of Chapter 3 appeared under the title “Textual Sentimentalism: Incest and Authorship in Melville’s Pierre” in American Literature 74, 2 (June 2002); it is reprinted by permission of the publisher. Earlier versions of portions of Chapter 5 appeared under the title “‘The Polishing Attrition’: Reading, Writing, and Renunciation in the Work of Susan Warner,” Studies in American Fiction 33, 1 (Spring 2005): 3–28; copyright © 2005 Northeastern University; reprinted with permission of The Johns Hopkins University Press. 226 Acknowledgments For their enthusiastic conversations about this project,incisive comments on earlier drafts of chapters, and unwavering support, I thank Julia Rothwax, Julie Byrne, Liza Yukins, Julie Crawford, Allison Pease, John-Michael Rivera, David Glimp, Valli Rajah, John Plotz, Dan Itzkovitz, Jonathan Grossman, Leah Price, Michelle Comstock, Pompa Banerjee, Kent Casper, Jake Adam York, Nancy Ciccone, Jennifer Peterson, Marjorie Levine-Clark, Margaret Woodhull, Maria Elena Buszek, Chaela Pastore, Jana Portnow, Lisa Soltani, Hallie Stosur, Julie Post, Kim Miller, Karl Kister, Mary Caulkins, Janet Robinson, Adam Lerner, Elissa Auther, Helen Thorpe, Phil Weiser, Heidi Wald, and Matthias Rothe. I am especially grateful to Susan Linville and Brad Mudge, both of whom read the manuscript in full and offered invaluable feedback. Many thanks as well to Gordon Hutner for helping me to navigate the world of academic publishing and to the anonymous readers at Penn Press, whose thoughtful insights helped to make this a far better book. Finally, my family—in all its incarnations—has been a source of boundless generosity. I thank my mother, Doris Silverman, for her undeviating belief in me and for her font of knowledge about all things psychoanalytic. My sisters, Ilena and Mara Silverman and my brother Stefan Silverman kept me grounded by reminding me that, overpowering though it can sometimes feel, writing a book is only a small slice of existence. My life is infinitely happier and saner for their presence. I thank Gary and Micki Joseph, Dan Joseph, Tracy Smith, Alexis Silverman, Brian Lloyd, Sam Stoloff, and Herb Dembitzer for giving me an ever-enlarging sense of what family can mean. I am immensely grateful for my b-joys—Desi, Jules, and Gideon—who fill my days with mayhem, music, and laughter. My biggest debt is to Philip Joseph, who read every word of this manuscript (sometimes 2 or 3 times), who offered tough criticism and expansive support, and who is, simply put, the smartest, funniest, best man I know. ...