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xiii Acknowledgments Since it has taken me all my life to write this book, it is di΀cult to know how to acknowledge or clearly identify the inspiration of this book. My childhood memories and all the people and experiences that shaped that time in my life are with me and have an emotional presence in this text. Since my childhood was eͿected by the trauma of the Lebanese civil war, its ghosts have not only marked this text, they are its imaginative and conceptual material. More concretely, I owe a big thanks to Yann Martel, whose novel The Life of Pi inspired the title of my book, but more importantly sparked an idea that grew and grew to become a book. Thank you, RM Kennedy, for loving this idea of mine and for all the hours spent thinking together, which I am certain have left an indelible mark on this book. Thanks to my niece, Zara Georgis, for sharing her wonderful dream with me. Thanks to all my friends—Sara Mathews, Trish Salah, Lara Karaian , Jennifer Kawaja, Angela Failler, Kate Bride, Fred Ho, Janet Rowe, and Katherine McKittrick—for their love and intelligence. A special thanks to Deborah Britzman and Rinaldo Walcott for sharing ideas with me a long time ago and introducing me to intellectual worlds. Thank you Jessica Fields for reading my book proposal with such amazing attention and Angel Byde for editing, beautifying, and sharpening my words. I am also appreciative of all my colleagues at WGSI for challenging me, especially Michelle Murphy for being such a smart reader of my work. Finally, I am so grateful for the work and guidance of Beth Bouloukos and all the folks at SUNY Press. xiv Acknowledgments Earlier versions of several of the chapters have appeared elsewhere. I thank the publishers for giving me permission to reprint them here: “Hearing the Better Story: Learning and the Aesthetics of Loss and Expulsion ,” The Review of Education, Pedagogy and Cultural Studies 28 (2006): 1²14, Taylor and Francis Ltd.; “The Perils of Belonging and &osmopolitan Optimism: An AͿective Reading of the IsraeliPalestinian &onÁict,” Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society 12 (2007): 242–259, Palgrave Macmillan; “Masculinities and the Aesthetics of Love: Reading Terrorism in De Niro’s Game and Paradise Now,” Studies in Gender and Sexuality 12 (2011): 134–148, Taylor and Francis Ltd. ...

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