Stance: Ideas about Emotion, Style, and Meaning for the Study of Expressive Culture

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments xxi / Acknowledgments 7 In writing this book, I have benefited from the stimulating conversation and friendship of more than a few good colleagues. First, I must thank Chris Menzel, a philosopher whose kindness, keen mind, and open-hearted spirit have never failed to inspire me. While we do not always see eye to eye on questions of metaphysics, the philosophy of mind, or culture, I have greatly profited from his diamond-sharp arguments and endless patience for discourse. My ideas and writing were always improved when I imagined him as my reader. In the early stages of the project, lunches with John Fenn helped to stimulate my thinking about the political and aesthetic implications of my evolving ideas about stance. Conversations with Philip Auslander during his residency at the Glasscock Center for Humanities Research at Texas A&M University and at our joint panels on music and performance studies at the conferences of the Society for Ethnomusicology and Performance Studies International helped me to develop my thinking about music, performance, and expressive culture. Deborah Kapchan read a draft of the manuscript, and her penetrating mind challenged me to engage new ideas and sharpen my thinking; this book is far better for it. Discussing ideas, probing concepts, reflecting, chatting, jawing, and otherwise hanging out with Brenda Bethman, Patrick Burkart, Wesley Dean, Rola el-Husseini, Susan Fast, Paul Greene, Judith Hamera, Fabian Holt, Joseph Jewell, Jimmie Killingsworth, Larson Powell , Annie J. Randall, Kati Szego, and Jeremy Wallach has always been enlightening , and I thank them for their kindness. I am grateful to the College of Liberal Arts at Texas A&M University for their support of this book. Of course, my greatest debt is to Giovanna P. Del Negro, whose unerring social theoretic instincts and deep sensitivity to the aesthetics of everyday life continually inspire me. This book is for her. This page intentionally left blank Stance This page intentionally left blank ...