Reading David Foster Wallace Between Philosophy and Literature

This book breaks new ground by showing that the work of David Foster Wallace originates from and functions in the space between philosophy and literature. Philosophy is not a mere supplement to or decoration of his writing, nor does he use literature to illustrate pre-established philosophical truths. Rather, for Wallace, philosophy and literature are intertwined ways of experiencing and expressing the world that emerge from and amplify each other. The book does not advance a fixed or homogenous interpretation of Wallace’s oeuvre but instead offers an investigative approach that allows for a variety of readings. The volume features fourteen new essays by prominent and promising Wallace scholars, divided into three parts: one on general aspects of Wallace’s oeuvre – such as his aesthetics, form, and engagement with performance – and two parts with thematic focuses, namely ‘Consciousness, Self, and Others’ and ‘Embodiment, Gender, and Sexuality’.

Table of Contents:
Introduction: David Foster Wallace between philosophy and literature – Allard den Dulk, Pia Masiero and Adriano Ardovino Part I: General perspectives 1 Absorbing art: the Hegelian project of Infinite Jest – Adam Kelly 2 Stages, Socrates, and the performer stripped bare: David Foster Wallace as philosopher-dramatist – Jeffrey Severs 3 ‘A matter of perspective’: ‘Good Old Neon’ between literature and philosophy – Adriano Ardovino and Pia Masiero 4 The influence of Christopher Lasch’s The Culture of Narcissism on David Foster Wallace – Paolo Pitari Part II: Consciousness, self and others 5 ‘What all she’d so painfully learned said about her’: a comparative reading of David Foster Wallace’s ‘The Depressed Person’ and Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground – Allard den Dulk 6 Infinite Jest’s ‘trinity of you and I into we’: Wallace’s ‘click’ between Joyce’s literary consubstantiality and Wittgenstein’s family resemblance – Dominik Steinhilber 7 Solipsism, loneliness, alienation: David Foster Wallace as interpreter of Wittgenstein – Guido Baggio 8 ‘This is just my opinion’: modelling a public sphere in The Pale King – Daniel South 9 Pioneers of consciousness: hypothesis for a diptych – Lorenzo Marchese 10 The problem of other minds in ‘Good Old Neon’ – Matt Prout Part III: Embodiment, gender and sexuality 11 ‘I am in here’: David Foster Wallace and the body as object – Clare Hayes-Brady 12 ‘The interstices of her sense of something’: David Foster Wallace, the quest for affect, and the future of gendered interactions – Mara Mattoscio 13 ‘You are loved’: race, love, and language in early Wallace – Lola Boorman 14 ‘They remain just bodies’: on pornography in David Foster Wallace (1989–2006) – Chiara Scarlato 15 ‘Something staring back at you’: an anamorphic reading of Infinite Jest – Angelo Maria Grossi Index

About the Author :
Allard den Dulk is Senior Lecturer of Philosophy, Literature and Film at Amsterdam University College and Research Fellow at the Faculty of Humanities of the VU University Amsterdam Pia Masiero is Professor of American Literature at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice Adriano Ardovino is Full Professor of Theoretical Philosophy at “G. d’Annunzio” University of Chieti-Pescara