Visible Writings: Cultures, Forms, Readings

Acknowledgments

This book could not have come into being without the vision and guidance of Leslie Mitchner and Marilyn Campbell, our editors at Rutgers University Press. We cannot thank them enough for their unfailing support, and for their patience. The present collection originated in a 2006 interdisciplinary conference co-organized by the French Department and the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum of Rutgers University and Université Paris 8–Saint-Denis; the enterprise was thus a supremely collective effort from its inception. Those who contributed to this endeavor are too numerous to name; many are represented or acknowledged in the pages that follow. We do nonetheless want to make special mention here of past and present directors of the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum—Phillip Dennis Cate, Gregory Perry, Marti Mayo, and Suzanne Delehanty— who supported our project through its many stages. Its development has been repeatedly and generously supported by the Zimmerli Art Museum’s endowment fund established by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, for which we are most grateful. Our gratitude goes as well to Stacy Smith, who encouraged our research in the museum; to Kiki Michael, who organized the photography of Zimmerli-held works; to Diana Schiau-Botea, Alfredo Franco, Florence Quideau, and Alla Rosenfeld, who variously enhanced our understanding of the Zimmerli’s collections; and to Marilyn Symmes, who in addition to contributing an essay immensely facilitated our work in the Morse Research Center for Graphic Arts and the Herbert D. and Ruth Schimmel Rare Book Library. Within the Rutgers community, we wish to thank students in our advanced graduate seminars on modern French poetry and theater, visual epistemologies, and cultures of the book for their various forms of contribution to this volume. We also wish to thank Isabel Nazario, associate vice-president for Academic and Public Partnerships in the Arts and Humanities, for her sponsorship of our project, as well as James Swenson, chair of the French Department, Uri Eisenzweig, director of the Transliteratures Project, Sarolta A. Takács, dean of the School of Arts and Sciences’ Honors Program, and Hartmut Mokros, dean of the School of Communication & Information, for their generous encouragement and support. We are very grateful to Rutgers librarians Jeanne Acknowledgments ix ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Boyle and Sara Harrington, who helped us locate obscure sources and resolve complicated issues of image reproduction rights. The technical and administrative resources of our respective home units were vital to the completion of this volume. Our thanks go in particular to Elizabeth Folk, administrative assistant of the French Department , and to Elizabeth Ciccone, business specialist at the School of Communication & Information, who provided crucial assistance with several aspects of the book’s realization. Dawn Potter’s thorough and patient copyediting for Rutgers University Press saved us from many errors and infelicities. We cannot sufficiently express our appreciation for the wise counsel and multifaceted assistance of François Cornilliat and Anselm Spoerri , who have steadfastly accompanied us through every step of this project. Finally, we remember and acknowledge the contribution of the late Richard Lockwood, former chair of the French Department; his own visible writing is featured on the dedication page. x Acknowledgments VISIBLE WRITINGS ...