I am grateful to the many people who made this project possible.
Thank you to the group of strong women who have served as my mentors: Giselle Liza Anatol, Kathryn Conrad, Doreen Fowler, Maryemma Graham, Susan K. Harris, and Jane Hill. Your scholarship and fellowship inspire me.
Thanks also to those individuals who read earlier incarnations of this project or otherwise provided helpful advice: Lisa Yaszek, L. Ayu Saraswati, Susan Gubar, Molly Fuller, Robert Miltner, and Amy Sherman. Thank you to the wonderful team at the University of Georgia Press, including Walter Biggins, Jordan Stepp, David E. Des Jardines, Thomas Roche, and Sue Breck-enridge, for your careful attention to my manuscript.
I am grateful to my professors at Baldwin-Wallace College, Ohio University, and the University of Kansas, and to my colleagues at Marshall University, especially those in the Department of English, Honors College, and Center for Teaching and Learning. For their especially generous and important contributions, I would like to thank Johnnie Wilcox, Kelli Prejean, Anna Rollins, Laura Sonderman, Daniel O’Malley, Hilary Brewster, Jill Treftz, and Kristin Steele. I am also appreciative of the friends and colleagues I have written alongside throughout the duration of this project, including Lindsey Harper, Zelideth María Rivas, Dawn Howerton, Robert Ellison, Cody Lumpkin, Sarah A. Chavez, Walter Squire, Amy Ash, Gaywyn Moore, Alicia Sutliff-Benusis, Ali Brox, and Heather Bastian. Several other individuals have talked through this project with me; I am particularly indebted to Kent Shaw, Carrie Oeding, Allison Carey, and Eric Smith.
My ideas for this project developed during conversations at several conferences, including the Octavia Butler: Celebrating Letters, Life and Legacy Conference (2016), the Midwest Modern Language Association Conference (2016, 2015, 2014, 2012), and the American Literature Association Conference (2014). Special thanks to the students who participated in my undergraduate Honors College seminars, Technology and the Evolution of Human Identity, and Robots, Aliens, and Black Speculative Fiction, as well as my graduate seminar, Posthuman Theory. I would especially like to acknowledge Andrew Johnston, Amber Wright, Zachery Rakes, Nathan Rucker, Steven Smith, Erica Law, and Michelle Hogmire. Extra thanks to Amber for lending her proofreading skills to the project and to Andrew for aiding me in my research on Afrofuturism.
An earlier and shorter version of chapter 1 appeared as “Becoming Self and Mother: Posthuman Liminality in Toni Morrison’s Beloved” in Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction 54.4 (2013). Portions of my research were supported by the West Virginia Humanities Council and Marshall University’s College of Liberal Arts.
This project exists because of the encouragement of family and friends: Sue Lillvis, Dean Lillvis, Joshua L. Lillvis, Katie Egging, Matt Egging, Sarah B. Hickerson, Julie Severino, Mallory Carpenter, Jessica Anderson, Craig Bantz, Lauren Kiehna, and Jana Tigchelaar. I am thankful for the care, comfort, and, when needed, distractions you provided. Thank you for everything.
Finally, I could not have begun theorizing on race, gender, and posthumanism were it not for the writers and theorists who have paved the way: Octavia E. Butler, Toni Morrison, Hortense Spillers, Sylvia Wynter, bell hooks, Peggy McIntosh, Alexander G. Weheliye, and Kodwo Eshun. I am honored to have the opportunity to highlight your work.