Abstract
The sudden and tragic loss of our dear friend and colleague Justin Nolan stunned us all. The abrupt end to his engaging, intellectual presence and uniquely kind, and generous spirit is beyond belief and has been most difficult to bear.
Justin was many good things to many different people but to those of us in ethnobiology and anthropology his remarkable, substantive scholarly contributions will forever remain as gifts to us all. Most of the contributors to this memorial issue have in one way or another been privileged to have conjoined with him as co-investigators, co-authors or simply friends and students forever rewarded by this enthusiastic thinker and master teacher. It is in recognition of this legacy, as well as to Justin the man, that this volume is dedicated. We as guest co-editors are profoundly grateful to all who have added their work to his remembrance.
Justin's own work is an amalgam of both fluent prose on Southern vernacular culture and folk life, which he deeply cherished, and on display in many places such as “Piney Woods Traditions at the Crossroads: Barbeques and Regional Identity in South Arkansas and Northern Louisiana” (in The Slaw and the Slow Cooked: Culture and Barbeque in the Mid-South, J. Veteto and E. Maglin. eds. (2011 Vanderbilt University Press)) and his scientifically sound and methodologically creative, empirical research applied to the ethnobotany of rural Missouri and his beloved Ozarks, initially made manifest in Wild Harvest in the Heartland: Ethnobotany in Missouri’s Little Dixie. (2007 University Press of America).
He will remain unforgotten…