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I would like to thank my friends and colleagues whose wisdom and generosity were essential to the completion of this book. Roy Swanson and Rachel Skalitzky welcomed me to Milwaukee and provided a congenial atmosphere in which to begin my work, helping to straighten a path that I had once expected to be more circuitous. Robin Pickering-Iazzi encouraged me in my decision to embark in a new direction of research, shifting temporarily away from my earlier work in literary modernism, in part to reflect more intensively on transformed political realities. A fellowship from the Center for Twenty-first Century Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee helped me to initiate this project, and I remain grateful to its then-director, Dan Sherman. A second grant from the Institute for Research in the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin– Madison was vital for getting me to the midpoint of the manuscript, and for this support I thank David Sorkin and Claudia Card. I would also thank the Korean Film Council (KOFIC) for its extraordinary generosity in providing foreign scholars with resources for the study of Korean cinema. Writing this book brought me into contact with fellow scholars whose kindness and insights were an unfailing source of inspiration. I am especially grateful to Michael Shin, Amy Elias, Phillip Wegner, Frenchy Lunning , Wendy Goldberg, Gregg Lambert, Marianna Torgovnick, Paul Maltby, Martin Kevorkian, and Matthew Biberman. Amy Elias introduced me to the debates over postmodern theory taking place within theology. Phillip Wegner helped me to broaden the scope not only of this project but also my future research by engaging the scholarship of utopian studies. Gregg Lambert has my gratitude for concluding his careful reading of the 183 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS manuscript with a challenge that was crucial for giving shape to its concluding chapter. Frenchy Lunning invited me to present a section of my manuscript at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design; it was both an honor and a delight to talk about the work of Alan Moore and Hayao Miyazaki at its annual conference on anime and manga. Michael Shin gave me a chance to test out my ideas about Korean cinema at the East Asian Studies Colloquium at Cornell University. A second visit to Cornell offered the occasion for a stimulating discussion of the theoretical debates engaged by my book. For this rigorously invigorating dialogue, I am grateful to Natalie Melas, Walter Cohen, Jonathan Culler, Debra Castillo, Jonathan Monroe, Sue Besemer, and the graduate students in the Department of Comparative Literature. Lastly, I am indebted to Robert and Sabine Doran, co-organizers of the Colloquium on Violence and Religion in 2008. This conference—and the spirited exchanges that took place there—ignited the spark necessary to see the manuscript to its end. To my colleagues at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee I owe a large measure of thanks. Tasha Oren took time from her many responsibilities to read portions of the manuscript. Bill Bristow generously shared his knowledge of philosophical ethics in ways that were always illuminating and instructive. Ihab Hassan gently redirected me when my writing was headed in a false direction. I owe a special debt of gratitude to Patrice Petro, whose tireless generosity and sagacious counsel were indispensable in the development of this project from manuscript to book. I appreciate the steadfast and unwavering support I received from the University of Minnesota Press and its inspiring editor, Doug Armato. I am deeply honored and touched by his commitment to my project, and his confidence in my work provided both inspiration and incentive to finish the manuscript after an unexpected delay. I thank Danielle Kasprzak for her dedication and attentiveness in preparing the manuscript. I am grateful for the words of praise and encouragement expressed in the reader’s report by Steven Shaviro: I hope that some day I will be able to encourage a younger scholar with the eloquent precision and warm insight with which he has inspired me. To my wife, Nan Kim, and my son, Elijah, I owe the deepest thanks for their patience during the many occasions this manuscript compelled me to draw back into my study. 184 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...

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