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Acknowledgments An earlier version of Lori Harrison‑Kahan’s “Passing for Black,White, and Jewish: Mixed Race Identity in Rebecca Walker and Danzy Senna ” appeared in MELUS 30:1 (Spring 2005): 19–48 under the title “Passing for White, Passing for Jewish: Mixed Race Identity in Danzy Senna and Rebecca Walker.” It is reprinted here, in revised form, by permission of MELUS­ , the Society for the Study of Multi‑Ethnic Literature of the United States, and Oxford University Press. MELUS, founded in 1973, “endeavors to expand the definition of American literature through the study and teaching of Latino American, Native American, African American , Asian and Pacific American, and ethnically specific Euro‑American literary works, their authors, and their cultural contexts.” For more information , go to www.melus.org. Of the many people I owe my thanks, I would like to offer a special acknowledgment to each of the contributors to this volume. I am a better scholar for having had the opportunity to work with them over the past several years, and they have confirmed for me many times over the vast benefits of scholarly collaboration. I am grateful, both as a scholar and a human, to know them. I would also like to thank Dr. Beth Bouloukos, Rafael Chaiken, and all the staff of SUNY Press, who were so supportive, insightful, and knowledgeable at each step of the publication process. I appreciate their always quick and helpful responses to my many queries. The anonymous readers throughout this process also have my deep gratitude. They provided invaluable advice on the manuscript, and I thank them sincerely for their thoughtful reading, their incisive comments, and their expert guidance on each essay. I offer my thanks, also, to the Office of Faculty Professional Development at Morgan State University for a Summer Research Grant that helped fund research for this project in its early stages, as well as to the xi xii / Acknowledgments Northeast Modern Language Association for approving a Special Session at which I first met several of the contributors. I thank my chairperson—Dr. Dolan Hubbard—and the three deans of the College of Liberal Arts under which I have had the pleasure to serve—former longtime dean Dr. Burney J. Hollis, interim dean Dr. M’Bare N’gom, and interim dean Pamela Scott‑Johnson. My colleagues in the department of English at Morgan State deserve special acknowledgment for their encouragement and support over the years. An individual thanks to Karl Henzy, who read an early draft of my essay on Alice Randall’s The Wind Done Gone included in this collection. To my mentor/friends—Monifa Love Asante, Dana D. Nelson, and Steven Weisenburger—I owe a debt of gratitude that I cannot adequately express here. I will simply say that they are everything a mentor should be—wise, generous, supportive, compassionate, dependable, and appropriately demanding. They set the bar high and they continue to inspire me every day. Personal and deep thanks go to my family, especially Charlie and Olivia, as well as Jane, Buck, Kathy, Sandy, Don, Mitchell, and Kendell, who support and strengthen me in ways too numerous to list. I also thank Jack, Bob, Priscilla, Guy, Becca, Isabel, and Clay. And, finally, I want to thank my friends, who enrich my life and see me through: Aimee, Amy, Anika, Dan, Doug, Heidi, Isaac, Jennifer, Joy, Karl, Kat, Kimberly, Lori, Lulan, Patrick, Peet, Rebecca, Tracy. I dedicate this book to all of them, and to Princess, because black and white still make Gray. ...

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