Acknowledgments

In recent years, I’ve had the obnoxious good fortune of writing several books at once, which has many advantages: it keeps me from getting too bored, frustrated, or overly invested in a single project. But it also makes keeping track of whom to thank all the more complicated: didn’t I already express my gratitude to that friend in the front matter to Project A? Were they really involved in my thought process for Project B? As I try to reconstruct my emotional and intellectual debts, I start to wish I’d used one of those programs that helps lawyers keep track of billable hours.

Still, I can’t say this makes me long for a world in which we punch the clock for emotional labor. So, with a few exceptions, I’m going to round up the usual suspects: my colleagues in the Russian and Slavic Studies Department and the Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia (Irina Belodedova, Rossen Djagalov, Bruce Grant, Boris Groys, Mikhail Iampolski, Ilya Kliger, Katya Korsounskaya, Yanni Kotsonis, Anne Lounsbery, Evelina Mendelevich, Anne O’Donnell, Leydi Rothman, Sasha Shpitalnik, Josh Tucker, Maya Vinokour) and in the Office of Global Programs (Janet Alperstein, Zvi Ben-Dor Benite, Peter Holm, Linda Mills, Nancy Morrison, Marianne Petit, William Pruitt) at New York University.

Once again, Deborah Martinsen caught more typos than I could ever imagine making, and I am sorry she is not around to see the final product.

I’d also like to thank the participants in the 2016 “Radiant Futures: Russian Fantasy and Science Fiction” conference at the Jordan Center, where I presented a version of the Russian Orcs chapter: Tony Anemone, Anindita Banerjee, Jacob Emery, Sibelan Forrester, Helena Goscilo, Yvonne Howell, Amanda Lerner, Mark Lipovetsky, and Maya Vinokour.

A portion of chapter 1 appeared, in different form, as “Our Borats, Our Selves: Yokels and Cosmopolitans on the Global Stage,” Slavic Review 67, no. 1 (2008): 1–7. A version of part of this chapter was presented at the Mid-Atlantic Slavic Conference in 2008. The first draft of the entire manuscript was serialized on the Jordan Center blog and on eliotborenstein.net.

I never cease to marvel at my good fortune in working with Cornell University Press, now for the fourth time. My editor, Mahinder Kingra, has shepherded this manuscript though more drafts than I care to recall and has yet to make a suggestion that was not an improvement. I also had the great pleasure of once again working with Carolyn J. Pouncy, queen of all proofreaders.

My always supportive family was around for the revisions of this book in ways that I had not expected. During the long months of the early COVID-19 pandemic, we spent much more time than usual in the same room, albeit left to our own (digital) devices. Franny, Lev, and Louie, I apologize for all the times I didn’t hear you when my headphones were drowning you out with white noise. Next time, you should probably text me.

All translations are my own, except when indicated otherwise.