We express our deep gratitude to the numerous individuals and institutions who made this anthology possible. This volume stems from a symposium held at Rice University in the spring of 2012, with the generous support of Rice University’s History Department, College of Arts and Sciences, Humanities Research Center, and Graduate Student Association. James Sidbury, Caleb McDaniel, Alida Metcalf, and Lora Wildenthal provided invaluable advice along the way. Coursework and exams with these exceptional scholars moved us to put together the symposium and this anthology. The History Department at Rice and the graduate students therein have developed a culture that allows projects like this one to flourish, and we were fortunate to have great examples to follow and to receive strong support. In particular, an earlier symposium organized by then-graduate students Ben Wright and Zachary Dresser provided us with a model and made it easier to make the case that this was something graduate students could and should be doing.
We are extremely grateful for the time, effort, and collegiality of those who participated in this project. The symposium elicited enlightening and intriguing discussions that made clear the necessity of this volume. We thank all of the participants in the original symposium, including those whose contributions we were not able to include in this anthology: Franz Hensel-Riveros, Natasha Lightfoot, Edward Moloy, K. Aaron Oosterhout, Rachel Purvis, Beverly C. Tomek, and Charlton Yingling. We also thank the individuals who contributed to or participated in the symposium in other ways: Laura Rosanne Adderley, Matthew Clavin, Jack P. Greene, Philip A. Howard, Violet M. Johnson, and Nikki Taylor, as well as Rice graduate students Ashley Evelyn, Biko Gray, D. Andrew Johnson, Cara Rogers, W. E. Skidmore II, and others. Although this volume has grown, developed, and changed in major ways since the initial symposium, that weekend’s discussions sparked the creation of this volume.
We also thank the contributors to this volume. These outstanding scholars took a leap of faith in entrusting their scholarly work to then-advanced graduate students and first-time volume editors. We are grateful for their patience. We extend an additional thank-you to Julie Saville, an incredible scholar who reworked her keynote address as the foreword. She is one of the kindest and most generous people with whom we have had the privilege to work. We thank Race in the Atlantic World, 1700–1900 series editors Richard S. Newman, Patrick Rael, and Manisha Sinha, as well as the members of the editorial advisory board, for selecting this anthology to appear alongside so many phenomenal works of scholarship. Walter Biggins and the other editors at University of Georgia Press provided invaluable assistance and advice throughout this process.
Whitney thanks Ben for his encouragement, editorial eye, and affection. John thanks his wife, Caroline, for her unending support and encouragement.