IT IS truly a joy after having worked on this book for so long to finally have the opportunity to give thanks to those who have supported me in manifesting this project. I would have never been able to birth this book into the world without the generous help of many family members, friends, colleagues, and teachers that I have been blessed to have in my life.
First, I’d like to express my deepest gratitude to Patchen Markell for his generous, patient, and detailed feedback on this project at many stages. He supported my desire to pursue this idiosyncratic project early on and he helped me to give voice to ideas that were at the margins of political theory. This book would not be here without his ongoing guidance. I thank Lisa Wedeen and Moishe Postone, who gave me excellent feedback and guidance in the early stages of this work. Moishe’s seminars on the Frankfurt School were my original inspiration for writing about the critique of reification. I also would like to express my sincerest gratitude for Iris Marion Young (1949–2006), a gifted teacher and thinker, who taught me that it is our obligation as political theorists to be relevant and to be engaged.
I would like to thank the following scholars who have given me feedback on this work at various stages of the process and who have inspired me along the way: Axel Honneth, John McCormick, Joe Lowndes, John Bellamy Foster, Wendy Brown, Amy Allen, Andrew Dilts, Mark Olynciw, Mara Marin, Shalini Satkunandan, Chris Buck, Leigh Claire LaBerge, Rahel Jaeggi, Ira Allen, Colin Koopman, Rosa Williams, Jim Chandler, Yves Winter, Rocío Zambrana, J. J. McFadden, Keeley McBride, James Ingram, Marianne Nabat, Jürgen Habermas, Kevin Olson, Davide Panagia, and Jodi Dean. I am indebted to discussions with Claire Fontaine and Jason Lazarus related to the ideas in chapter 6 of the book. Their work was a tremendous inspiration. Thanks to Claire Fontaine and Metro Pictures Gallery, Mika Rottenberg and the Andrea Rosen Gallery, Oliver Ressler and Zanny Begg, and Jason Lazarus for generously granting permission to reproduce their work here. I am also grateful for conversations that I was fortunate to have in the early stages of this project with Jacques Rancière and Alain Badiou, in the context of a reading group with Max Blechman and Rafeeq Hasan, which were formative for me in my desire to engage with post-Marxist theory.
I would like to thank the Department of Political Science at the University of Oregon for its support of my project and for creating a fertile ground for intellectual creativity. I would especially like to thank my department chair, Priscilla Southwell, for generously sponsoring a manuscript workshop for this book in 2013; my senior colleagues Dan Tichenor, Gerry Berk, and Joe Lowndes for facilitating the workshop; and Kevin Olson, Davide Panagia, and Jodi Dean for traveling all the way to Eugene, Oregon to provide extremely helpful commentaries on my work. My thanks as well to Greg Liggett, David Root, Robin Barklis, Crystal Brown, and Nicole True for research assistance.
This book was written with the generous support of grants from DAAD, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Andrew Mellon Project through the Franke Institute of the Humanities. I thank the Franke Institute for Humanities at the University of Chicago and the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt for providing office space during the course of my writing. I would like to thank James Chandler for his gracious support of my project in the early stages, and for opening my work up to a wider audience at the Franke Institute. I am also grateful for my time at the University of Chicago at the Society of Fellows, and to my colleagues and friends there for all of their support.
I am extremely grateful to my series editor Amy Allen for supporting this project; I could not have imagined a better home for my ideas than this series. My deepest gratitude to Wendy Lochner at Columbia University Press, for facilitating the editorial process, which has been extremely supportive and seamless, to Susan Pensak for her impeccable editorial work as production editor and copyeditor, and to Christine Dunbar for editorial support. I would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers who commented on the text; my revisions were greatly assisted by their helpful and thorough comments.
Last but not least, I am grateful to my dear friends and loved ones who have encouraged me to stay the course. Thanks to Miranda Johnson for your amazing friendship and your keen ability to see through the inessentials, combined with the fire and the inspiration to still care deeply for the world. Rocío Zambrana, truly a soul sister and a partner in intellectual crime, your friendship has sustained me through the final, most challenging phase of this book. My gratitude to Lydia Hamann, you always re-enchant my world just when I begin to forget. Angelica Singh, my bottomless gratitude for your insight and presence; you’ve helped me to see that it all truly is in service. Scott Jensen, for swimming with me in the infinite ocean, for the depth of your friendship and the communion of our conversations about everything. A thousand kisses for Emilie Conrad (1934–2014), who taught me how to dance with words and with life. Andrew Royal, a kindred spirit and a visionary mind, without you I never would have found my way. Jacob Dinneen, thank you for your friendship and your deep compassion for humanity, from which I’ve learned so much. I am grateful to Rebecca Mark, Hanna Heiting, and all of the beloved members of Words and Waves, who kept fanning the flames of my desire to write even as I was challenged by the demands of academic writing. My gratitude to Katharina Loew, Carolyn Craig, Tim Bloch, and my beautiful community of friends in Eugene, Oregon and beyond. I thank my sister, Sheila Chari, who, for as long as I can remember, has stood beside me in facing life’s challenges and whose loyalty and love sustain me. And, last but not least, I must thank my parents for standing by me every step of the way: my father, Sridhar Chari; my stepmother, Jaya Chari; and my mother, Manju Iyer, who has always believed in me and who has sacrificed so much so that I could pursue my path. I want to express special thanks to my stepfather Gopalan Krishnamurthy, who has supported my education in ways that go above and beyond what a parent is expected to do for his child, who has shepherded me on my educational path since I was a kid, and who has set an example of integrity, discipline, and excellence for me. And, finally, I express my gratitude for the divine matrix that sustains all words, all thoughts, and all wisdom.