Life After Death Redux: Anticipating the Posthumous Geographies of Dr. Bobby M. Wilson

Abstract

Life After Death Redux: Anticipating the Posthumous Geographies of Dr. Bobby M. Wilson Nik Heynen (bio) I met Dr. Bobby M. Wilson at an Antipode reception at the Las Vegas AAG meeting in 2009. I had seen him at previous Antipode receptions and other AAG events but I was always too nervous to approach him. Before I met him, I had the great pleasure of having some mentoring from Dr. Harold Rose at my first job, at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. Dr. Rose talked to me as much as I would come around; I pestered Dr. Rose plenty. He’d often tell me stories about coming up in the discipline and he often invoked an important relationship with Dr. Wilson that I found inspiring. Dr. Wilson and I got to know each other better over a small-group week-long workshop in Vancouver in 2012. That meeting ultimately led to an edited book Trevor Barnes and Eric Shepherd published titled Spatial Histories of Radical Geography. Since Dr. Wilson and I were both traveling back to the South from Vancouver, we spent five or six hours getting to know each other in a bar at the Vancouver airport. Ultimately, he was not able to write his chapter for that book because of events going on in his life (his first wife passed away in 2012 and as I later found out, he was starting to grapple with his own health issues). He had planned to write about being at Clark when Antipode was founded as a graduate student. I never tired of seeing him reenact making copies of the first issues on the risograph machine they used in the basement of the geography building at Clark; he’d wind up his arm and turn it round and round. During that airport session, Dr. Wilson mentioned he was writing a new book. Having helped start UGA’s Geographies of Justice and Social Transformation Series, I pitched the idea of him considering UGA Press for his book. He liked what I was saying. That conversation led to an ongoing relationship that, in part, revolved around that book which is titled Consumer Political Economy and African-America: Slavery to Postmodernity. In that same airport chat, I told him that I had paid well over 100 dollars for my copy of America's Johannesburg, which was hard to come by when I bought it, and I suggested we do a reissue of it at UGA. He liked that idea a whole lot. Signaling his humble spirit though, I remember him asking me if I thought anybody would buy it. It was a very strange experience to be in such awe of somebody, while trying to assure them that their work was timeless and required greater circulation. While getting the reissue of America's Johannesburg accomplished took a lot of effort because while they did not intend to reissue it, Rowman & Littlefield, who held the copyright, was unwilling to let it go to UGA Press. At various times I felt like it was not going to happen, which made us work harder to make it happen. I suggested he ask Dr. Ruth [End Page 210] Wilson Gilmore to write a new forward to help situate the book for new (and previous) readers given her importance and stature in the field. He liked that idea a lot also. Dr. Wilson was really happy when it came out. When it was all said and done, this was one of the moments in my time at the UGA Press series that makes me the happiest upon reflection given the joy and gratitude he expressed. When I met Dr. Wilson at that 2009 AAG Antipode reception, I also, for the first time, met Dr. Clyde Woods, as they were standing together talking. Did I mention I felt nervous and intimated? S-h-e-e-e-e-t. That meeting takes on a new and complicated significance when I think about things that have occurred since Dr. Wilson’s passing. Dr. Wilson submitted Consumer Political Economy and African-America: Slavery to Postmodernity to UGA Press not too long after we talked in 2012. It made me feel like I truly...