Settler Common Sense: Queerness and Everyday Colonialism in the American Renaissance

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments This book began as a request. Bob Levine and Caroline Levander asked me to contribute something to the Blackwell Companion to American Literary Studies. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to write, but since previously I’d been focusing primarily on struggles around Native self-representation, I decided that I would think about questions of settler subjectivity. As an experiment I began to consider Henry David Thoreau’s Walden and William Apess’s “Eulogy on King Philip” for what they might say about the relation between citizenship, settler colonialism, and everyday nonnative experience. The short essay that came of that intellectual exercise served as the initial kernel for this book, and for that reason I am deeply grateful to Bob and Caroline for the invitation and for all of the feedback they offered on that piece. This project marks a welcome return to the nineteenth century, bringing me back to the period about which I wrote my dissertation. In this vein, I owe thanks to those who provided my initial training in nineteenthcentury American literary studies at the University of Pennsylvania, especially Eric Cheyfitz, Nancy Bentley, Colin Dayan, and Chris Looby. I also am deeply grateful to those who read and offered comments on the manuscript , whether whole or in part, including Beth Piatote, Lisa Brooks, Nancy Bentley, Colin Dayan, Pete Coviello, Dana Nelson, Kyla Tompkins, and the anonymous reader from the press. Thank you so much for your time, support , and incisive readings; they have strengthened the project immensely. Parts of this project were presented at the University of Minnesota, the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Pomona College, the Huntington Library, and the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association, and I am grateful to all of the organizers of the various conferences, symposia, speakers’ series, and panels for inviting me and to all of the participants for ix x Acknowledgments their help in shaping what appears here. I also have benefited incalculably from my ongoing conversations with a range of fellow scholars over the years. In addition to those already mentioned, I would like to include Joanne Barker, Kevin Bruyneel, Jodi Byrd, Jessica Cattelino, David Chang, Jennifer Denetdale, Jean Dennison, Qwo-Li Driskill, Tol Foster, Mishuana Goeman, Alyosha Goldstein, Lisa Kahaleole Hall, Shona Jackson, Daniel Heath Justice , Scott Morgensen, Jeani O’Brien, Bethany Schneider, Audra Simpson, Andy Smith, Lisa Tatonetti, Patrick Wolfe, and Craig Womack. The University of North Carolina at Greensboro has offered a wonderful place to be for the past five years. In particular, I would to thank Risa Applegarth, Becca Black, Danielle Bouchard, Liz Bucar, Sarah Cervenak, Tony Cuda, Michelle Dowd, Asa Eger, Jen Feather, Tara Green, Mary Ellis Gibson, Ellen Haskel, Jennifer Keith, Karen Kilcup, Derek Krueger, Christian Moraru, Noelle Morrisette, Kelly Ritter, Gene Rogers, Scott Romine, Hepsie Roskelly, María Sánchez, Ali Moore, Amy Vines, Anne Wallace, and Karen Weyler for their friendship and support. I owe much to my dissertation students—Rose Brister, Jason Cooke, Zach Laminack, Gene Melton, Matt Mullins, Andrew Pisano, David Rogers, and Belinda Walzer— who have kept me on my toes, introduced me to new ways of thinking, and reminded me consistently of why I chose this profession. I also would like to thank the students in my course “Representing Indians: Writings by and about Native Americans in the Nineteenth-Century U.S.” for their intellectual energy and acuity. This project also was aided immensely by a one-year research leave from UNCG as well as a Regular Faculty Research Grant. Working with University of Minnesota Press continues to be a wonderful experience, due largely to my wonderful editor Jason Weidemann and his assistant Danielle Kasprzak. For keeping me going when I’m ready to stop, and for reminding me how wonderful things can be when I look up from my computer and step out of my office, I owe a great debt to Sheila and Alex Avelin, Zivia Avelin, Jon Dichter, Kevin and Justin Dichter, Mike Hardin, Marc Smith and Lisa Dilorio Smith, Tiffany Eatman Allen and Will Allen, Alicia and Bobby Murray, Debbie and Andy Johnson, Tammy Sears, Craig Bruns, Keith Brand, Kent Latimer, JJ McArdle, and Jon Van Gieson. For Erika Lin, you already know (and there isn’t enough space). My parents, Neal and Sharon Acknowledgments xi Rifkin, and sister, Gail Dichter, remind me of where I’ve been and help orient me to where I’m going, and...