Writing this book has been far from a solitary activity. It is with great pleasure that I thank those who helped me conceive the project, saw me through its many transformations, and now I hope share in the joy of its publication. During my time at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, I encountered extraordinary scholars and thinkers. Rebecca Walkowitz changed the way I approach modernism and understand its potential to shape thought. I thank her for her warm encouragement in all things, professional and personal. Rob Nixon challenged me to substantiate and refine my reflections on the relationship between literary form and political agency. That challenge became a core concern of this book. I remain grateful for his critical insights and generous spirit. I am also indebted to Susan Stanford Friedman, Anne McClintock, and Bala Venkat Mani, who provided valuable advice as well as the inspiration of their own work. Others at Madison deserve thanks as well: Vinay Dharwadker, Theresa Kelley, and Caroline Levine lent their time and wisdom to my scholarly endeavors. Jack Dudley, Claire Falck, Aline Lo, and Cody Reis continue to see me through.
A fellowship at the Harvard Department of English gave me the opportunity to expand my intellectual community and meet new friends in the field. It was especially a delight to exchange ideas with Homi Bhabha, Glenda Carpio, Amanda Claybaugh, David Damrosch, and Nirvana Tanoukhi as I embarked on this book. As I finished it, I enjoyed the company of the wonderful fellows at the Committee on Globalization and Social Change at the CUNY Graduate Center. Special thanks go to Gary Wilder for inviting me into that interdisciplinary group and to David Joselit for leading the conversation on my work-in-progress. Portions of this project have also been presented at the Global Modernism Symposium at Ithaca College, the Modernist Studies Association, the American Comparative Literature Association, the Society for Novel Studies, and the Mods working group at the University of Pennsylvania. I thank Devorah Fischler, Christopher Holmes, Gayle Rogers, and Jennifer Spitzer for those opportunities. I am also grateful to Thomas Davis and Nathan Hensley for inviting me into their fantastic MSA seminar on “Global Scale and Critical Form.” My chapter on Tagore benefitted from a research trip to the Rabindra Bhavana (Institute of Tagore Studies and Research) at Visva-Bharati, in Santiniketan. I am pleased to mention Swapan Majumdar and Manju Rani Singh, whose hospitality there made my visit a delightful and productive experience.
At Duke and beyond, I am fortunate to have the support of colleagues who are as generous as they are intelligent. Srinivas Aravamudan, Nancy Armstrong, Rey Chow, Deborah Jenson, Ranjana Khanna, Jahan Ramazani, Paul Saint-Amour, and Priscilla Wald participated in a manuscript workshop for this book, sponsored by the Franklin Humanities Institute. Discussing my work with such a formidable group was a highlight of my academic career and no doubt improved the manuscript, though any shortcomings remain my own. Paul and Priscilla kept reading, even after the workshop; they model the kind of mentorship I wish to practice. Leela Gandhi, Nathaniel Mackey, and Jessica Namakkal read portions of the book and returned exceedingly helpful comments. For their conversations about this project and warm encouragement along the way, thanks to David Aers, Dominika Baran, Sarah Beckwith, Jessica Berman, Christopher Bush, Ian Baucom, Joe Donahue, Brent Edwards, Thomas Ferraro, Laura Harris, Frances Hasso, Sharon Holland, Priya Joshi, John Marx, Joshua Miller, Rob Mitchell, Michael Valdez Moses, Fred Moten, Sumathi Ramaswamy, Urmila Seshagiri, and Marianna Torgovnick. Nancy Armstrong and Len Tennenhouse have been crucial sources of advice ever since I arrived at Duke. Philip Leventhal, my editor at Columbia University Press, and his assistant, Miriam Grossman, guided me through the stages of book production with assurance and aplomb. The anonymous readers offered astute commentary on the manuscript and useful suggestions for refining it. Ellen Song supplied excellent research support. I am grateful to the Dean’s Publication Subsidy Fund at Duke for financially supporting the publication of this book. I also thank the members of my classes at Duke, particularly those in my graduate and undergraduate seminars on modernism, for engaging with me and challenging me to be a better thinker and teacher.
Parts of chapters 2 and 4 have been previously published in different forms: “Putting Foreignness to the Test: Rabindranath Tagore’s Babu English,” Comparative Literature 65, no. 1 (2013): 15–25; and “National Myth, Transnational Memory: Ondaatje’s Archival Method,” Novel: A Forum on Fiction 45, no. 2 (2012): 257–275. My thanks to Duke University Press for permission to include portions of these pieces.
My mother, Nirmala Vadde, and father, Prasad Vadde, have nurtured my strange endeavors from the very beginning, even when these took me away from vocations readily recognizable to them. I thank them for letting me follow my passions and for enabling me to do so in every way. Kavitha Vadde, Steve Botlagudur, Kirin, and Prem offered lively support, just enough curiosity, and much needed distraction. As did enduring friends: Urvashi Chakravarty, Leigh Goldstein, Julia Kim, Shahirah Majumdar, and Anri Yasuda. I am quite sure that Chimeras of Form would not have been written without the patience, love, and intelligence of Erik Larsson. As this book was in its latest stages, Siddhartha Isak Vadde Larsson was in his earliest ones. We are so glad to welcome our little internationalist to the world.