Exhibiting Slavery: The Caribbean Postmodern Novel as Museum

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments The original research for this book was made possible by the expert guidance of Professors Jenny Sharpe, John Skirius, and Ross Shideler at UCLA. Thanks to their willingness to let me write papers on Caribbean literature, I became interested in postmodern historical fiction about slavery. Since arriving at Indiana University seven years ago, I completely changed my way of thinking about these same key texts because of the wonderful resources I found on campus. The first of these is the IU Art Museum, where curators Nannette Brewer and Jenny McComas helpfully answered all my questions and shared with me the museum’s copies of many of the paintings and engravings I discuss in chapter 2. Their enthusiasm for their work and eagerness to share the museum’s resources with a lowly assistant professor filled me with ideas and helped me focus my research. In my own Department of Comparative Literature, I learned from colleagues who specialize in comparative arts, Giancarlo Maiorino, David Hertz, and Matei Calinescu, how to analyze the interrelationship between works of art and literature. Special thanks go to Rosemarie McGerr and Deborah N. Cohn, from the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, both of whom provided helpful advice and much encouragement . Laila Amine was an invaluable asset, providing help and guidance with the translations from the French. Among my colleagues in other departments, I have learned the most from my professional collaborations with Professor Matthew Pratt Guterl, Director of the Program in American Studies and faculty member in the Department of African American and African Diaspora Studies. I was lucky enough to codirect a year-long faculty research seminar during 2005–6 entitled “Variations on Blackness,” which received support x Acknowledgments from the College of Arts and Sciences, the Office of the Vice President for Research, and the Office of the Dean of Faculties. I first explored some of my thoughts on the role of slavery museums in contemporary culture in the essay I presented as part of this seminar. During the graduate research seminar that Professor Guterl and I cotaught, as well as in the “Variations on Blackness” conference we organized in April 2006, I fleshed out my interpretation of the interrelationship between museums and postmodernist fiction with the help of colleagues and graduate students . My thanks go out to them all. Thanks to my aunt, Alma Benítez de Blanco, for hosting me and driving me all around Old San Juan in search of museums. We had a lot of fun finding new places neither one of us had seen before. Finally, my husband and colleague, David Halloran, drove me from Bloomington, Indiana, to Cincinnati, Ohio, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, so that I could spend time analyzing the various slavery-related exhibits at the Milwaukee Art Museum, America’s Black Holocaust Museum, and the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center during various outings in 2005 and 2006. Without his love for the open road, I would not have been able to write this book. I thank him and hope he will continue to drive me around the country from museum to museum, and beyond. ...