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indebtedness is difficult to measure. Perhaps as scholars we are what we write. In that sense those who have enabled me to begin and finish this book have allowed me to come into being. A deep debt, indeed. First and foremost, I want to thank Winfried Fluck. His presence in this study is noticeable even in the very conception of the New Americanists as an object of study. His resistance to Emersonian enthusiasm was a healthy check whenever I was tempted to “understand all and forgive all.” Ultimately even more important is the intellectual inspiration he has offered me in the nearly ten years that I have considered him a mentor. Many of my central ideas I owe to him. During my time as a Visiting Fellow at Harvard in 2006–2007, Larry Buell most immediately watched the individual chapters emerge, and was immensely helpful in sharpening my readings of Emerson. A truly Emersonian teacher, he consistently upheld a posture of reciprocity in our meetings, even when a disproportion of expertise was obvious to both of us. I am also particularly grateful to Don Pease, who continually demonstrates that even in the cool endeavors of abstraction, there is no mastery outside of passion. Not once did he take my project of critiquing the premises exemplified by the New Americanists personally. On the contrary, he has encouraged me intellectually with all his might and has offered vital help for this book. Ulla Haselstein, Heinz Ickstadt, Leo Marx, Herwig Friedl, Ross Posnock, Thomas Claviez, Susanne Rohr, Elisa New, and Harald Wenzel read and commented on individual chapters; Homi Bhabha and Louis Menand discussed contemporary criticism with me. Several friends went through large parts of the manuscript and gave me meticulously detailed feedback, among them Michael Boyden, Julian Hanich, Jeff Hole, Maria Slowinska, and Ulrike Wagner. Were it not for Erin Hart’s support and contagious self-discipline, I could not have written the largest part of this book in one year. In 2006 and 2007, the participants of the Futures of American Studies Summer Institute at Dartmouth, where I presented early versions of chapters 2 and 6, made acknowledgments x Acknowledgments many helpful suggestions, as did the members of the doctoral colloquium in American literature at Harvard, where, in 2007, I presented chapter 4. My students in Berlin, particularly a 2006 seminar on Transcendentalism, collaborated with me in trying out many ideas that ended up in these chapters. Richard Ellis, former editor of Comparative American Studies, and Paul Kane, guest editor at Religion & Literature, helped improve the portions that were published in those journals: A different version of chapter 1, including some material from chapter 2, appeared as “Representation, Emerson , and the New Americanists” in Comparative American Studies 6, no. 1 (2008): 37–54 and is reprinted by permission of Maney Publishing (www .maney.co.uk/journals/cas). A different version of chapter 2 was published as “Emerson and the Sociality of Inspiration” in Religion & Literature 41, no. 1 (Spring 2009): 83–109 and reprint permission has been granted by the University of Notre Dame. In its final steps toward publication, the book has greatly benefited from the work of Richard Pult, Ann Brash, and the other staff members at the University Press of New England, as well as the copyediting of David Chu. Financially, my leave from teaching—essential for completing the manuscript within the duration of my contract at the Freie Universität Berlin— was made possible by a dissertation stipend from the German Academic Exchange Service (daad). Of my friends and former colleagues at the Kennedy Institute of the Freie Universität, to all of whom I am grateful for creating a stimulating environment of ritualized discussion, I am especially indebted to Laura Bieger and Andy Gross. In their own way, both clarify to me why it makes sense to pursue this career despite its hazards to the self. My parents—all four of them—and my sister have given me a strong sense of backing me up, come what may. Gratitude of its own kind goes to Magda Majewska. She makes the mind matter in ways I had not known. ...

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