Different Shades of Green: African Literature, Environmental Justice, and Political Ecology

Acknowledgments

Over the years, the University of Kansas gave me the time and financial support needed to write this book. During my tenure as a Resident Fellow at the Hall Center for the Humanities in fall 2009 I developed early sections of chapters 1 and 2. I am also grateful to the Hall Center and its director, Victor Bailey, for the Nature and Culture Seminar, where I received feedback on two chapters and was part of numerous productive discussions. Chapter 4 was facilitated by a fall 2011 sabbatical leave from the University of Kansas. In addition, I benefited from a Keeler Intrauniversity Professorship in the spring of 2010; it helped make the project more interdisciplinary through my collaboration with two colleagues, Chris Brown (geography) and Gregory Cushman (history). Thanks to the University of Kansas General Research Fund for summer support in 2006 and 2008 and to the Kansas African Studies Center (KASC) and the English Department for funding trips to many conferences where I presented various parts of chapters. KASC also funded a colloquium on environmental studies and literary studies in Africa, which generated rich discussion. I am grateful to the Rachel Carson Centre in Munich for a workshop on nature and environment and, especially, to Anthony Carrigan,­ Elizabeth DeLoughrey, and Jill Didur for organizing it; feedback from and engagement with an amazing group of scholars helped me shape my ideas on the uses of political ecology. Thanks also to Rhodes University , Trinity College, Garth Myers, and Dan Wylie for opportunities to­ present overviews of the project as it was nearing completion. I appreciate the permissions granted to reprint revised versions or excerpted portions of the following essays: “Shifting the Center: A Tradition of Environmental Literary Discourse from Africa,” in Environmental Criticism for the Twenty-First Century, edited by Stephanie LeMenager, Teresa Shewry, and Kenneth Hiltner (Routledge, 2011); “In Place: Tourism, Cosmopolitan Bioregionalism, and Zakes Mda’s Heart of Redness,” in Postcolonial Ecologies: Literatures of the Environment, edited by Elizabeth DeLoughrey and George Handley (Oxford University Press, 2011); introduction and “Never a Final Solution: Nadine Acknowledgments x acknowledgments Gordimer and the Environmental Unconscious,” in Environment at the Margins: Literary and Environmental Studies in Africa, edited by Byron Caminero-Santangelo and Garth Myers (Ohio University Press, 2011). Many thanks to the friends, colleagues, and editors whose feedback, suggestions, and conversation were crucial in the development of this book: Glenn Adams, Folabo Ajayi-Soyinka, Victor Bailey, Chris Brown, Ali Brox, Lawrence Buell, Erin Conley, Dustin Crowley, Gregory Cushman , Brian Daldorph, Elizabeth DeLoughrey, Dorice Elliott, Stephanie Fitzgerald, Peter Grund, George Handley, Jonathan Highfield, David Hoegberg, Graham Huggan, Stephanie LeMenager, Simon Lewis, Julia Martin, Liz MacGonagle, Antonio Melchor, Jeremy Miller, Brian Mulhern , Peter Ojiambo, Anna Neill, Susie O’Brien, Tejumola Olaniyan, Ellen Satrom, Teresa Shewry, Carol Sickman-Garner, John Tallmadge, Brook Thomas, Don Worster, Laura Wright, Dan Wylie, and Boyd Zen­ ner. I also benefited from lively discussions with wonderful graduate students (too numerous to name here) in and outside the classroom. There are a few people to whom I am especially indebted. I sincerely thank Clare Echterling for her tireless work, keen eye, and superb organizational skills as we readied the final version of the manuscript. The friendship, feedback, and scholarship of Anthony Vital have been an inspiration throughout the years. Paul Outka enabled me to sharpen my arguments through feedback and exciting debate, and his warmth, humor, and cycling mania helped keep me sane during the final writing stages. I am forever indebted to Rob Nixon for his quick generosity, his invaluable advice, and his extraordinary scholarship. Garth Myers has been instrumental in the development of the project . Years ago he included me in KASC’s US Department of State affiliation grant with the University of Zambia, focused on environmental studies; the work I presented in Lusaka became the kernel for the book. Since then, he has helped me develop into a more interdisciplinary scholar through innumerable conversations and suggestions, feedback on many of the chapters, the cohosting of a colloquium, and the coediting of an edited volume. No less important, Garth’s good humor and our long friendship have often given me crucial moments of respite when I most needed them. As always, very special thanks to my family members for their loving support and encouragement: Beth, Jerry, Whitney, Nicola, and ­ Gabriel Santangelo. Finally, my deep appreciation goes to Marta for all the many ways she has helped me through our years together. ...