1,721,815 research outputs found
David Hering, David Foster Wallace: Fiction and Form
No full textDavid Hering, David Foster Wallace: Fiction and Form Bloomsbury Academic, 216. Pp. 216. ISBN: 9781628920550 Paolo Pitari David Hering’s David Foster Wallace: Fiction and Form begins with an original thesis: all of Wallace’s fiction oscillates between monologism and dialogism in a process revolving around “the continual risk of a master discourse engendered by the degree of Wallace’s authorial presence” (7). The thesis shakes one of the fundamental anchors of Wallace criticism, i.e. the readin..
Harrison, Bernard. What Is Fiction For? Literary Humanism Restored
No full textOne is faced with a complex task when asked to review such a massive and learned work as Bernard Harrison’s What Is Fiction For? The challenge is that of doing justice to the sheer amount of knowledge and insight the author presents in a book that is so sharp and penetrating — and at the same time so vast and multilayered.
Harrison is a philosopher, and this book constitutes a philosophical defense of the importance of literature and literary humanism. For Harrison, these concepts are intrinsically connected with a redefinition of the philosophy of language (especially Wittgenstein’s) and a redefinition of the task of the literary critic
Atti del Convegno: La Radiazione solare ultravioletta nell'atmosfera terrestre: variabilità e implicazioni biologiche.
No full textSteven M. Cahn and Maureen Eckert, Freedom and the Self: Essays on the Philosophy of David Foster Wallace
No full textSteven M. Cahn and Maureen Eckert, Freedom and the Self: Essays on the Philosophy of David Foster Wallace. New York: Columbia University Press, 2015. 192pp. ISBN: 9780231161527. Paolo Pitari Independent scholar Freedom and the Self: Essays on the Philosophy of David Foster Wallace is the second collection of essays in Wallace studies that approaches the author from a philosophical standpoint, and most of the critics and students who look forward to reading this book have read the first, Ges..
Waxler, Robert P. The Risk of Reading
No full textI specifically requested to review this book out of personal interest in works that offer ethical bases for dedication to literature. This interest was reinforced after learning a few biographical things about the author. Robert P. Waxler is an English professor at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and, most importantly, he is co-founder of the Changing Lives Through Literature (CLTL) program. CLTL is “essentially a reading group that meets over a period of weeks and that is attended by an instructor, probation officer, judge, and students” (CLTL website); it is a bibliotherapy program that offers alternative probation sentences to offenders. Basically, individuals on probation can enroll and, if they show up to class, do their homework, and complete the course, their probation may be reduced. In other (rough) cases, they might run into penalizations. The program was founded on the idea –constantly repeated in The Risk of Reading (RoR) –that literature does affect lives for the good, and it has been proven to save the government tens of thousands of dollars and reduce recidivism. How cool is that
Cahn, Steven M. and Maureen Eckert eds. Freedom and the Self: David Foster Wallace and Philosophy
No full textFreedom and the Self: Essays on the Philosophy of David Foster Wallace is the second collection of essays in Wallace studies that approaches the author from a philosophical standpoint, and most of the critics and students who look forward to reading this book have read the first, Gesturing Toward Reality: David Foster Wallace and Philosophy (edited Robert K. Bolgerand Scott Korb), published just one year before. If that is the case for you, just know that this book is very different. It mostly concerns itself with Wallace’s undergrad philosophy thesis, published in 2010 under the title Fate, Time, and Language: An Essay on Free Will (also edited by Steven M. Cahn). With such focus, it manages to make us more familiar with a side of Wallace’s we readers are not much in contact with: his philosophical background not just in existential terms, but in logical terms also. In this sense, I must say, my main critique to this collection is that the final two essays would have been much more in context in a book like Gesturing Toward Reality. In here, they seem (at least relatively) out of context. My opinions aside, let’s look at the content
David Lynch’s Influence on David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest
No full textThis essay investigates the influence of the films of David Lynch on David Foster Wallace’s major novel Infinite Jest. It is organized in two sections. Section one illustrates Wallace’s views on what real art should be, as they are expressed in his two famous “manifestos,” and proceeds to read the essay “David Lynch Keeps His Head” in relation to the manifestos in order to demonstrate that Lynch’s influence on Wallace’s thought has not yet been fully grasped. Section two delves into Infinite Jest to examine textual proof of the Wallace-Lynch connection, both in content and form. Content-wise, convergences are proven to permeate both authors’ interest in theories of consciousness, typified in themes such as: psychoanalysis, especially the Oedipus Complex; self-deception; the Sartrean “look;” the corporeal subject and the phenomenological distinction between objective body and lived body. Form-wise, the following narrative items are mapped: Lynch’ssurrealism, recognizable in paradigmatic scenes from Infinite Jest; the character-idea, as both authors embody abstract ideas in characters; and a formal commitment to “an anti-teleological spirit.” Finally, the analysis takes into consideration Lynch's films produced prior or during the writing of Infinite Jest, and exclusively those Wallace expressed direct admiration for, namely: Eraserhead (1977), The Elephant Man (1980), Blue Velvet (1986), and Lost Highway (1997)
Atti del Convegno Evidenze del Cambiamento climatico: dalla scala globale a quella locale
No full textIn Defense of Literary Truth: A Response to Truth, Fiction, and Literature by Peter Lamarque and Stein Haugom Olsen to Inquire into No-Truth Theories of Literature, Pragmatism, and the Ontology of Fictional Objects
No full textThis article responds to the arguments put forth by Peter Lamarque and Stein Haugom Olsen in Truth, Fiction, and Literature: A Philosophical Perspective (1994). It argues that the said work is representative of the widespread tendency in literary theory today to discard the possibility of literary truth, and it provides counterarguments to the work’s main theses. Consequently, it criticizes the philosophy of pragmatism and its implications, and it offers a theory that defines fictional objects as existing and solves contradictions that commonly affect our debates on the ontology of fiction. The article does not provide a positive theory of literary truth, but it undermines its denials, which have become popular in recent decades
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