Course Description:

David Foster Wallace is universally acclaimed as the author of boundary-pushing non-fiction, novels, and short narratives. Infinite Jest (1996) is a large, masterful, ambitious novel that Wallace composed to provoke thought and spark conversation. Working as a group, practicing close reading, open-ended questions, and discussion, we will analyze Wallace’s virtuoso prose, his one of a kind thought process, his prophetic images of a future of America (set 20 years after it was published), as well as his deeply personal and sensitive depictions of character. We will ask such questions as: What is Wallace’s place in American literary history? How does he depict contemporary culture, media, and technology? Does he provide strategies for the reader to navigate the onslaught of information, distraction, and entertainment in the 20th-21st centuries through literature or interpersonal relationships?