Acknowledgments

Thanks to Sarah Blackwood and Sarah Mesle for founding Avidly, for making space, for asking me to write this, and for teaching me how.

Thanks to the folks who cluster around Avidly for all the warmth and brilliance and feeling they lend to the practice of criticism, especially though far from exhaustively, Mandy Berry, Lisa Beskin, Hester Blum, Tim Cassedy, Michelle Chihara, Lara Cohen, Brian Connolly, Pete Coviello, Ashon Crawley, Greg Edwards, Ramzi Fawaz, Jonathan Flatley, Stephanie Foote, Beth Freeman, D. Gilson, John Havard, Glenn Hendler, Briallen Hopper, Yahdon Israel, Claire Jarvis, Evan Kindley, Grace Lavery, Dana Luciano, Tina Lupton, Sarah Miller, Justine Murison, Jordy Rosenberg, Dana Seitler, Caleb Smith, Gus Stadler, Kathryn Stockton, Pam Thurschwell, Kyla Tompkins, Cindy Wu, and Catherine Zimmer.

Thanks to the team at NYU Press, especially Andrew Katz, Martin Coleman, Dolma Ombadykow, and Eric Zinner.

Thanks to Alexander Lee Testere for the frontispiece illustration.

Thanks to the very patient people who taught me to read theory: Blaize Wilkinson, the late Greta Slobin, Daniel Selden, Ann Lane, the late Peter Euben, Sam Frost, Robert Reid-Pharr, Bill Connolly, Jane Bennett. One hundred and eight bows to Jody Greene, for all that and handstands too.

Thanks to Rei Terada for finishing a sentence, not to mention all the things she helped begin; to Lauren Berlant for the queer worlds she enables and sustains; to Sianne Ngai for the gifts of her intelligence, humor, and interest.

Thanks to Noah Glassman, in whose conversations thoughts and feelings take shape as stories.

Thanks to Hilary Emmett for going to see Kristeva with me years ago. Thanks to Peter Coviello, Sam Draxler, Ian Epstein, Geoff Gilbert, Andrea Lawlor, Eng-Beng Lim, Dana Luciano, Heather Lukes, Molly McGarry, Meredith McGill, Jasbir Puar, Tim Stewart-Winter, and Ed Whitley for swapping tales and otherwise opening up the archives of their theoretical educations to me. Different versions of some of these stories have been told elsewhere: in Avidly and in the zine FAQNP: A Queer Nerd Publication. My gratitude especially to Ray Cha for giving me the chance to recollect.

Thanks to the friends who listened to these stories, shared their own, and read: Rahne Alexander, Shonni Enelow, Abby Kluchin, Janet Neary, Julie Orlemanski, Frank Pasquale, and Ben Wurgaft.

Thanks to my students who, over fifteen years and counting, have taught me so much. Especially big shout-outs to Spencer Everett and Adam Fales for sharing the scenes of their learning with me, for reading these pages, and for teaching me the most.

Thanks to Elan Abrell and Delci Winders for making Santa Cruz first possible and then home.

Thanks to the cast and crew of the Cosmic Condo, Robert Chang, Courtney Miller-Callahan, Michael Stevens, and also Rahne Alexander, Heather Malcolm, Janet Neary, Kellie Schmitt, Gloria Shin, and Jesse Silva.

Thanks to Aufie for countless writing breaks and for more than words can say. Thanks to Robin Riley and Newton for walks in the park and rides in the stroller.

Thanks to Edward Hui, for everything.