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213 Writing this book has been a lesson in gratitude. My greatest debt is to Josie Saldaña, who not only has been an amazing advisor and friend but whose own work on development, subjectivity, and feminism continues to inspire me. Josie always knows to push me when I need it and talk me down from the ledge in moments of panic; her support and belief in this work sustained it from its earliest formulations until now. Daniel Kim has also been a formative mentor and friend; I haven’t forgotten his lessons on how to build a raft. Rey Chow’s rigorous engagement with this book in its earlier incarnation as a dissertation is still paying dividends. Other faculty members at Brown University who generously gave of their time and mentorship include Timothy Bewes, Madhu Dubey, Olakunle George, Nancy Armstrong, and Leonard Tennenhouse. My amazing graduate cohort—Chris Lee, Yogita Goyal, Matthew Pursell, Tess Takahashi, Zak Sitter, Monica Peleaz, Danny Voloch, Julia Davis, Alisa Hartz, Eugenia Zuroski, and Avak Hasratian—makes me nostalgic for graduate school. As a Marilyn Yarborough Teaching/Dissertation Fellow at Kenyon College, I was fortunate enough to have Kirstie Dorr, Sara Clarke Kaplan, Mrinalini Chakravarty, and Leila Neti as colleagues and friends. Sara and Kirstie have been inspiring and treasured interlocutors, and this book would not have gotten written were it not for “book writing boot camps” in Northampton and San Diego. I have learned more from them than I can say, not least about the power of friendship. Special thanks also to my mentors at Connecticut College—Julie Rivkin and Nancy Goldstein—for starting me on this path those many years ago. Within the English Department at the University of Massachusetts Amherst I have been fortunate to find myself in vibrant and generous ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 214 acknowledgments intellectual community. Suzanne Daly and Jane Degenhardt have been brilliant readers and friends in good times and bad. Runs with Jen Adams kept me sane. Laura Furlan, Haivan Hoang, Emily Lordi, Rachel Mordecai, Hoang Phan, Adam Zucker, Nick Bromell, Deborah Carlin, Janis Greve, Randall Knoper, Donna LeCourt, Joseph Skerrett, Jenny Spencer, and Ron Welburn have offered friendship and advice and patiently listened to me complain. Stephen Clingman has been a supportive colleague and friend and a valued interlocutor on issues of postcolonialism and transnationalism. Laura Doyle’s insights on issues of gender and eugenics have been vital, as have her friendship and mentorship . During my time at UMass I’ve been lucky to have two excellent department chairs—Anne Herrington and Joseph Bartolomeo— who advocated for me and have been more than understanding of a variety of personal circumstances. I am grateful for the generous junior research leave that allowed me to complete a portion of this book and for opportunities to present my work at the Crossroads in the Studies of the Americas Seminar, the Interdisciplinary Seminar in the Humanities and Fine Arts, the Five College Asian/Pacific/American Studies faculty group, and the English Department Colloquium series. I also thank the many people at UMass and the four colleges who offered support and friendship: Laura Briggs, Paula Chakravarty, Floyd Cheung, Kavita Datla, David Hernandez, Laura Lovett, Srati Shah, Amina Steinels, and Banu Subramaniam. Iyko Day helped me survive the final push and patiently assisted me in thinking through many of the formulations here. Special thanks to the “Forbes crew”: Nerissa Balce, Richard Chu, Jessica Delgado, Dayo Gore, and Arianne Miller. Outside the “happy valley” there are many whose intellectual generosity and friendship have sustained me. Little did I know how lucky I was when I met Chris Lee in our first graduate seminar; he patiently talked through various iterations of these ideas with me (no matter how half-baked), read multiple versions of this book, and generously lent his brilliance to its pages (all faults, it goes without saying, are my own). This is a much better book for all of his careful attention and insight. Cathy Schlund-Vials’s astute readings, endless support, and equally endless humor have been crucial in seeing this book through to completion . Friends and audiences at the American Studies Association and the Association for Asian American Studies who helped me work through these ideas, and those who read portions of this book and shared their work with me, include David Eng, Rosemary George, Aaron Lecklider, Eric Lott, Crystal Parikh, Min Song, and Chris Vials. Special thanks to [3.145.186.6] Project MUSE (2024-04-25 12:19 GMT...

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