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ix Acknowledgments Abook requiring fieldwork and dialogue across disciplines greatly expands the number of people to whom I am indebted. Insights that contributed to a word, a sentence, or an entire section of the book sometimes came from a conversation in the hallway, a late night beverage, or a quick email. In other words, many thanks to all those who were interested enough in my work as a scholar and in the working poor as persons that you shared the journey with me—even for a brief moment. Many organizations openly accepted an academic in their midst who wove together participation and observation on an almost daily basis. I am particularly grateful to Interfaith Worker Justice and several of their affiliates for extending me their trust. Kim Bobo and Megan Macaraeg in particular were great sources of inspiration for the book. My research also benefited materially and intellectually from two research groups at Vanderbilt University. The Robert Penn Warren Center hosted a research group that placed me in conversation with feminist social movement theorists as my project commenced. Combined with my ongoing collegium of the past four years, the Global Feminisms Collaborative , I have been able to pursue interdisciplinary conversations that were vital to this text. Thanks especially to Lyndi Hewitt, Katy Attanasi, Sarah VanHooser, Brandi Brimmer, Anastasia Curwood, Susan Saegert, Marilyn Robinson, Darcy Freedman, Andrea Tucker, Kate Lassiter, Stacey Clifton, and Sonanali Supra. In both of those groups and in my life, Brooke Ackerly has been my continual champion and intrepid conversation partner. I am also grateful to Vanderbilt Divinity colleagues who have supported this work: Victor Anderson, Stacey Floyd-Thomas, Ted Smith, Graham Reside, Barbara McClure, Trudy Stringer, Ellen Armour, Viki Matson, and Alice Hunt. Friends and colleagues across time and space such as Monya Stubbs, Khette Cox, Lyndsey Godwin, Heather Caudill, Barbara Andolsen, Christine Hinze, Toddie Peters, Pamela Brubaker, Laura Stivers , and Harlan Beckley also enriched this project in many ways. My stu- x  Acknowledgments dents also continually press me to connect theory and practice, and they teach me through the varied activisms of their lives. They give me confidence that “even ministers” think social movement theory can be helpful. Thank you as well to my NYU editor Jennifer Hammer and her willingness to take a chance on this kind of book, and her continual encouragement to make it better. The fine editing work of Jane Katz also sharpened my prose along the way. Finally, thank you to Bart Dredge and Jeff Rogers who taught me in two undergraduate courses whose simultaneity would set me on a life path: “Social Movements” and “Old Testament Prophets.” Your pedagogy and passion continue to inspire me. Biblical quotations are drawn from the King James Version, the New Revised Standard Version, the New American Standard Bible, and the TaNaK (Jewish Publication Society). Parts of some chapters in this book have been previously published in journals. The articles are “Working Women and Complex Coalitions: Feminist and Religious Activists in the Living Wage Movement,” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, Spring 2011 (forthcoming); “Waging Religious Ethics: Living Wages and Framing Public Religious Ethics,” Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics 29, no. 1 (Spring/Summer 2009): 69–86; “Religion, Race, and Bridge Building in Economic Justice Coalitions,” Working USA: The Journal of Labor and Society 12, no. 1 (March 2009): 73–95; “Oh, Mary Don’t You Weep: Progressive Religion in the Living Wage Movement,” Political Theology 8, no. 3 (July 2007): 269–79. ...

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