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Acknowledgments This book finds its origins in an attempt to think through the role played by literature and literary forms of writing in the development of enlightened materialist philosophy. In arguing for the centrality of the experience of poetically induced pleasure to the history of French materialism, I aim to revise and to historicize the notion that materialist thought invariably reaches for a reality that is beyond or outside of representation. Such an understanding of materialism’s import should be viewed, I argue, as the product of specific eighteenth-century arguments around the nature of substance and its relationship to language, rather than as the point of departure for all materialist philosophy. This project owes its very existence—as an idea and then as a book—to the sustained kindness of many people. I will remain particularly grateful to Luce Giard, for the education she has given me in philosophical and critical thinking; to Michel Narcy, for introducing me to Epicurus and to Lucretius; to Jean O’Barr, for inspiring and encouraging me; and to Philip Stewart, for his expert guidance throughout the long process of putting together the argument that appears here. I am equally beholden to the extraordinary support and sheer generosity that has been shown me by Peggy Kamuf, Karen Pinkus, and Hilary Schor during the time I spent working on this book at the University of Southern California; I could not have asked for better colleagues, or for better friends, and am profoundly grateful for their thoughtfulness—as well as for their critical rigor. I also owe many thanks to Jérôme Brillaud, Paul Cohen, Corrinne Harol, Antónia Szabari, and Helen Thompson, for the care, attention, and intelligence with which they have engaged with various moments in the manuscript . Conversations with Amy Billone and Eleanor Kaufman have been similarly invaluable. I am grateful, too, to Christian Jacob for his having given me the opportunity to present a part of this project in his seminar ‘‘Mise en scène et mise en texte des cheminements de pensée’’ at the École vii viii Acknowledgments normale supérieure in Paris. Marion Hobson was unfailingly generous with her time and with her advice. I could not have completed this book without the intervention of Rebecca Lemon at instances too numerous to recount; her gracious and perceptive readings of my work not only improved the end result, but provided a crucial model, for me, of scholarly professionalism. I would also like to thank Helen Tartar, for her editorial guidance and support at many crucial moments, as well as the anonymous readers of the manuscript, whose comments and suggestions have contributed immeasurably to the book as whole. The graduate students in my seminar ‘‘Voluptuous Aesthetics’’ helped me to hone and refine my argument by challenging my assumptions and allowing me to reread familiar texts in unfamiliar ways, and I owe a special debt of gratitude to Laurence Clerfeuille, for her work on the bibliography. Various parts of the manuscript have profited immensely from the critical and editorial acumen of David Tomkins. The staff of the Specialized Libraries and Archival Collections at the University of Southern California, of the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library , and of the Bibliothèque nationale de France played an instrumental role in the production of the book, and I feel fortunate to have benefited from their help. I am lucky, too, to have had the support of grants from the Clark Library, the Camargo Foundation, and, at USC, the Zumberge Faculty Research and Innovation Fund, without which the book could not have been completed. Earlier versions of material from this book appeared in Eighteenth-Century Studies (parts of chapter four) and in Lire Sade (L’Harmattan, ), edited by Norbert Sclippa (parts of chapter six). Finally, I would like to thank Elspeth Kuang, as well as Anne and Janine Chevrier, for enabling me to think about my work—and indeed, about matter and embodiment—in new and productive ways. The mere expression of gratitude to Michael Meeker, Gesine Meeker, and Elena Meeker seems insufficient, given the ways in which they have each been fundamental in forming—and periodically reigniting—my desire to write, to think, and to do academic work. Justin Pearlman reminds me daily of what matters, and why. ...

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