Blackwell Reference Online

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This book appears as a stupendous collective effort, as a chorus of voices each giving form to unique but related concerns. The process of its preparation, however, has been beset, at every stage, by obstacles of every kind. Initially reluctant to take it on at all, we were eventually persuaded by our editor Jayne Fargnoli, who very wisely enlisted David Theo Goldberg to contact us. In spite of having already taken on too many obligations, we agreed and, after having drawn up a wish list of contributors, soon set about writing to them to see if they, too, might feel compelled. We were delighted when so many authors, driven by such a range of commitments and from a rich diversity of experiences and many disciplinary fronts, said that they would write for this volume. And as the pieces came in, we were humbled. The essays were not only composed by people from whom we had already learned so much, who had, through their own efforts, created the terrain in which we might thrive, but they also reflected a sense that they were writing for something historic; that they had, proverbially, sought to rise to the occasion. And rise they did. They each brought to their prose a set of gnawing commitments and concerns that undergirded and spoke through their more specialized work. In them were footprints and sweat, frustration and endurance, a vision of an alternative way of doing and being in ... log in or subscribe to read full text