Acknowledgements
Notes on Contributors
Introduction
Scott Korb, New York University, USA
Chapter One. How We Ought To Do Things With Words
Alexis Burgess, Stanford University, USA
Chapter Two. The Subsurface Unity of All Things, Or David Foster
Wallace’s Free Will
Leland de la Durantaye, Claremont McKenna College, USA
Chapter Three. A Less ‘Bullshitty’ Way To Live: The Pragmatic
Spirituality of David Foster Wallace
Robert K. Bolger, USA
Chapter Four. This is Water and Religious Self-Deception
Kevin Timpe, Northwest Nazarene University, USA
Chapter Five. Inside David Foster Wallace’s Head: Attention,
Loneliness, Suicide and the Other Side of Boredom
Andrew Bennett, University of Bristol, United Kingdom
Chapter Six. The Lobster Considered
Robert C. Jones, California State University, Chico, USA
Chapter Seven. The Terrible Master: David Foster Wallace and the
Suffering of Consciousness (with Guest Arthur Schopenhauer)
Blakey Vermeule, Stanford University, USA
Chapter Eight. Philosophy, Self-Help and the Death of David
Wallace
Maria Bustillos, USA
Chapter Nine. Untrendy Problems: The Pale King’s Philosophical
Inspirations
Jon Baskin, University of Chicago, USA
Chapter Ten. The Formative Philosophical Influences of David Foster
Wallace With Special Reference to The Broom of the System
Tom Tracey, United Kingdom
Chapter Eleven. Beyond Philosophy: David Foster Wallace and the
Dangers of Theorizing
Randy Ramal, Claremont Graduate University, USA
Chapter Twelve. Good Faith and Sincerity: Sartrean Virtues of
Self-Becoming in David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest
Allard den Dulk, Amsterdam University College, Netherlands
Chapter Thirteen. Theories of Everything and More: Infinity Is Not
The End
Ryan David Mullins, University of Bonn, Germany
Chapter Fourteen. Does Language Fail Us? Wallace’s Struggle with
Solipsism
Patrick Horn, Azusa Pacific University, USA
Index
An accessible introduction to the many intersections between the work of David Foster Wallace and the world of philosophical inquiry.
An accessible introduction to the many intersections between the work of David Foster Wallace and the world of philosophical inquiry.
Robert K. Bolger (Ph.D., Claremont Graduate University,
USA) is the author of Kneeling at the Altar of Science: The
Mistaken Path of Contemporary Religious Scientism.
Scott Korb teaches writing at New York University, the New
School, and in Pacific University’s MFA program (all USA). His
books include The Faith Between Us, Life in Year One, and Light
without Fire.
Wallace’s deeply influential postmodern pragmatism was not the
casual by product of his novelistic vision. Rather, it was the
distillation of a lifetime of urgent and rigorous philosophical
engagement. Unfortunately, that deeply informed background is often
obscured by the white light of his intimate, inimitable voice.
Gesturing Toward Reality refracts that light to reveal the colorful
spectrum of his sources. The essays assembled here are as lively as
they are entertaining, and provide an accessible introduction to
some of the most complex ideas in Wallace’s already challenging
oeuvre .
*Marshall Boswell, Professor and Chair of English, Rhodes College,
USA, author of Understanding David Foster Wallace, and co-editor of
David Foster Wallace and "The Long Thing"*
Gesturing Toward Reality is the first collection of pieces on David
Foster Wallace to tackle head-on one of the things that make his
work so important to so many: the power of his thinking.
Approaching Wallace's thinking from a variety of angles, the
philosophers and literary critics in this volume work hard (and to
great effect) to tease out Wallace's ideas as they appear in his
fiction and nonfiction, to explore how he came to them from his
education and experience, how he expressed them through language,
and what they meant for him and might continue to mean to us;
Gesturing Toward Reality thus makes a significant contribution not
only to Wallace studies but to the work of anyone interested in
literature and philosophy, in the way we tell stories in order to
think.
*Samuel Cohen, Associate Professor of English, University of
Missouri, USA*
I spent part of the weekend past making my way through the first
four essays in the collection and I've found much to enjoy and
think about so far...So this collection has moved from the very
interesting to must have.
*The Howling Fantods*
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