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Vol 1., Issue 1 2018 2018 Vol 1., Issue 1 2018 2018 T HE J OURNAL OF D AVI D F OS T ER W ALLACE The International David Foster Wallace Society S T was founded to promote and sustain the long-term U D scholarly and independent study of David Foster IES Wallace’s writing. To these ends, the Society wel- comes diverse, peer-reviewed scholarship and seeks to expand the critical boundaries of Wallace studies. We recognize and champion the visual, the alternative, and the literary: the presence of minds at work. The Society showcases a variety V of projects—at conferences, on panels, in our print OL publication, The Journal of David Foster Wallace 1., Studies, and through other non-traditional modes I of scholarly expression. SSUE 1 www.dfwsociety.org cover design by david jensen The Journal of David Foster Wallace Studies is published by the International David Foster Wallace Society. Copyright © 2018 International David Foster Wallace Society The Journal of David Foster Wallace studies (Print) ISSN 2576-9995 The Journal of David Foster Wallace studies (Online) ISSN 2577-0039 Designed by David Jensen Cover art copyright © 2018 David Jensen STAFF Editor Clare Hayes-Brady, University College Dublin Managing Editor Tony McMahon Advisory Board Matt Bucher Grace Chipperfeld Linda Daley David Hering Adam Kelly Jonathan Laskovsky Matthew Luter Nick Maniatis Mike Miley Alexander Moran Rob Short Lucas Thompson Subscriptions To subscribe to the Journal of David Foster Wallace Studies, visit the International David Foster Wallace Society on the web at https://dfwsociety.org. Membership in IDFWS includes a reduced sub- scription price for the journal as well as access to electronic editions. Submissions All submissions are welcome. Send directly to [email protected]. Follow us on Twitter @dfwsociety VOLUME 1, NUMBER 1 FALL 2018 Introduction Why a Wallace Studies Journal Now? by Lucas Thompson ......... 7 Letters Letter from the Editor, Clare Hayes-Brady ................................. 11 Essays Subjectivity and Faith in Updike and Wallace: A Comparison of the Interpretation of Kierkegaard in Rabbit, Run and Infnite Jest by Allard den Dulk and Preben Jordal ........................................ 17 How to Be: Buddhism, Boredom, and the Practice of Awareness in The Pale King by Joseph B. Nash ............................ 55 Another Lien on Life: David Foster Wallace’s Institutional Perspective by Colbert Root ................................... 85 Loosening the Jar: Contemplating Race in David Foster Wallace’s Short Fiction by Colton Saylor ............ 119 “ The Last Word”: Sex-Changes and Second-Wave Feminism in The Broom of the System by Daniela Franca Jofe ................... 151 Reviews Review of Adam S. Miller’s The Gospel According to David Foster Wallace: Boredom and Addiction in an Age of Distraction by Grace Chipperfeld .............................................................. 185 Review of Lucas Thompson’s Global Wallace: David Foster Wallace and World Literature by Matthew Luter ....................................... 189 Contributors’ Notes .................................................................. 193 WHY A WALLACE STUDIES JOURNAL NOW? s far as I can tell, Greg Carlisle was the frst to call publicly Afor a journal devoted to David Foster Wallace. Carlisle made his case in the 2010 introduction to Consider David Foster Wallace, a collection that emerged from the frst international academic event devoted solely to Wallace’s work—the 2009 Liverpool conference organized by David Hering. Arguing that a dedicated journal would provide both “a regular forum for continuing the critical conversa- tion about Wallace’s work” and a “central, structured locus for that formal conversation,” Carlisle predicted it would also help cement Wallace’s place as “the most important author of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.” At the time, many were sympathetic to Carl- isle’s argument, though I think Stephen J. Burn was right to say, in his 2010 review of this same collection, that beginning such a proj- ect would be somewhat premature, given the understandably pre- liminary understanding of Wallace’s work. For Burn, the unbridled enthusiasm of advocates like Carlisle needed to be reined in a little before the sober, dispassionate assessment of the fction and essays could begin. Moreover, Burn saw the collection as revealing a schol- arly feld that was only just beginning to fnd its feet, and identifed a prevailing spirit of inquiry that was far too uncritical in its praise for the recently deceased author. 7 T he Journal of David Foster Wallace Studies Nearly a decade on, we have witnessed an explosion of interest in Wallace’s work, both from lay readers and academics. The interven- ing years have seen the publication of numerous monographs and edited collections devoted to Wallace, as well as an ever-ballooning number of journal articles and book chapters. (The David Foster Wallace Research Group at the University of Glasgow is heroically tracking these publications, picking up where Nick Maniatis’s Howl- ing Fantods page on academic work left of.) Burn’s 2010 complaint that the feld was too saturated with graduate students and early career academics no longer holds. Many prominent professors and other high-profle scholars have since weighed in on aspects of Wal- lace’s work, and while many graduate students are still producing groundbreaking work in dissertation projects, an increasingly di- verse collection of scholars (from many career stages, disciplines, and research interests) have also joined the conversation. In fact, the conversation has more interlocutors now than ever before, as inter- pretive communities in academia and well beyond wrestle with the meaning of Wallace’s work and the ways it continues to speak to our contemporary moment. Now that Wallace Studies has a genuine claim to being viable as a feld, the moment feels right for the inauguration of this kind of journal. While scholarly work will of course continue to be pub- lished elsewhere, a journal devoted to Wallace opens up a space within which a particular kind of conversation can be extended. It also provides room for new voices to enter the critical discussion and sets out a clearly defned zone of scholarly inquiry where vari- ous ideas and questions can be worked through rigorously and col- laboratively. Why, for instance, is Wallace’s work crucial to the way we understand the trajectory of US literary postmodernism? Is he truly a representative fgure of his generation, his cultural moment, and perhaps even his nation? And in the wake of a recent backlash, stemming from charges of misogyny and racism, in what terms can we justify still reading and teaching him? 8 Lucas Thompson Signifcantly, an increasing number of scholars have recent- ly pushed back against certain aspects of Wallace’s work, enact- ing something like what Judith Fetterley characterizes as “resistant readings.” Such work casts a critical eye on Wallace’s engagement with class, gender, race, politics, and sexuality, and in doing so has unearthed dimensions of his project that had previously been ne- glected. Other critics have read his work in light of recent theo- retical developments and preoccupations, which have also opened up new interpretive possibilities. I am thinking here of approaches from such disparate felds as afect studies, economics, recent ana- lytic philosophy, world literature, whiteness studies, religious studies, and narratology, to name just a few. We will no doubt continue to see many other frameworks and sub-disciplines be brought to bear on his fction and essays in the years ahead. There are other pressing questions that will surely also be tak- en up in the coming years, both in this journal and beyond. How, for instance, might the claims of post-critique scholars alter our approach to Wallace’s work? What happens when we stop trying to “see through,” “penetrate,” and “unmask” and instead attempt more generous and reparative readings? And how might new dis- coveries in the social sciences concerning emotions, moods, feelings, and afects change the way we account for his fction? Questions of reception might also prove fruitful. How, for instance, might a richer account of Wallace’s readers, who of course comprise many nation- alities, genders, classes, etc. allow us to see what is most valuable in his work? By what methods might we gain a more accurate sense of his audience and the myriad ways he is read? I think we can also look forward to seeing, in the coming years, scholarship on unpublished or little-known work from the archive and elsewhere. Our collective understanding of what exactly is in the voluminous Wallace collection at the Harry Ransom Center is still incomplete, and those prepared to do the heavy lifting of archival re- search will doubtless unearth many more important discoveries. We 9 T he Journal of David Foster Wallace Studies might look forward to seeing treatments of previously unpublished or obscure texts, and perhaps even expanded editions of Infnite Jest and The Pale King, which would no doubt recalibrate our understand- ing of these novels. The forthcoming collection of Wallace’s corre- spondence, edited by Burn, will doubtless also inspire new scholar- ship. We will also see analyses that deploy new theoretical angles or developments, which even Wallace―despite his uncanny intellectu- al and cultural clairvoyance―could not have foreseen. The complicated question of Wallace’s inheritors is always worth taking up, as his legacy continues to shape the work of younger writers. Likewise, exploring art in other genres that takes inspira- tion from Wallace might also prove illuminating since it speaks back in intriguing ways to various source texts. We are also likely to see, I expect, more writing that foregrounds the idiosyncrasies of par- ticular critics and writers wrestling with his work. Jane Tompkins’s plea, back in the 1980s, for critics to remove the “straitjacket” of faux-objectivity and come clean on their own investments is still a provocation to many felds―including our own. Such writing, done well, could help us understand more clearly why Wallace’s work still matters and what kind of things it can allow us to do, see, feel, or know.
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