A Companion to David Foster Wallace Studies

Abstract

Criticism of the work of David Foster Wallace has tended to be atomistic, focusing on a single aspect of individual works "A Companion to the Work of David Foster Wallace" is designed as a professional study of all of Wallace's creative work. With essays written by both top scholars in the field and exciting newcomers, the volume is anchored by a set of essays that provide detailed readings of each of his major works of fiction, including three novels and three story collections. Interwoven through these half-dozen single-text studies are thematic-based essays that address larger segments of Wallace's achievement via an eclectic range of critical environments, including mathematics, the spatial turn in contemporary criticism, gender theory, the legacy of American Pragmatism, and the emergent field of post-postmodern literary studies Preface / Stephen J. Burn and Marshall Boswell -- Almost a novel: The broom of the system / Patrick O'Donnell -- A fiction of response: Girl with curious hair in context / Kasia Boddy -- David Foster Wallace and the mathematics of infinity / Roberto Natalini -- "Webs of nerves pulsing and firing": Infinite jest and the science of mind / Stephen J. Burn -- Location's location: placing David Foster Wallace / Paul Quinn -- Mediated immediacy in Brief interviews with hideous men / Mary K. Holland -- Language, gender, and modes of power in the work of David Foster Wallace / Clare Hayes-Brady -- "The constant monologue inside your head": Oblivion and The nightmare of consciousness / Marshall Boswell -- "The chains of not choosing": free will and faith in William James and David Foster Wallace / David H. Evans -- The pale king, or, the white visitation / Brian McHale -- The novel after David Foster Wallace / Andrew Hoberek.