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Title The legacy of David Foster Wallace / edited by Samuel Cohen and Lee Konstantinou
Published Iowa City : University of Iowa Press, ©2012

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Description 1 online resource (xxv, 270 pages) : illustrations
Series The new American canon : the Iowa series in contemporary literature and culture
New American canon.
Contents Acknowledgments; Samuel Cohen and Lee Konstantinou -- Introduction: Zoologists, Elephants, and Editors; Part 1: History; Paul Giles -- All Swallowed Up: David Foster Wallace and American Literature; Don DeLillo -- Informal Remarks from the David Foster Wallace Memorial Service in New York on October 23, 2008; Josh Roiland -- Getting Away from It All: The Literary Journalism of David Foster Wallace and Nietzsche's Concept of Oblivion; George Saunders -- Informal Remarks from the David Foster Wallace Memorial Service in New York on October 23, 2008; Part 2: Aesthetics
Samuel Cohen -- To Wish to Try to Sing to the Next Generation: Infinite Jest's HistoryRick Moody -- Tribute Written for Wallace Family Memorial Book, 2008; Lee Konstantinou -- No Bull: David Foster Wallace and Postironic Belief; David Lipsky -- An Interview with David Foster Wallace; Heather Houser -- Infinite Jest's Environmental Case for Disgust; Dave Eggers -- Foreword to Tenth Anniversary Edition of Infinite Jest; Part 3: Community; Ed Finn -- Becoming Yourself: The Afterlife of Reception
Jonathan Franzen Informal Remarks from the David Foster Wallace Memorial Service in New York on October 23, 2008Kathleen Fitzpatrick Infinite Summer:Reading, Empathy, and the Social Network; Michael Pietsch and Rick Moody On Editing David Foster Wallace: An Interview; Ira B. Nadel -- Consider the Footnote; Molly Schwartzburg -- Conclusion: Observations on the Archive at the Harry Ransom Center; Notes on Contributors; Permissions; Index
Summary "Considered by many to be the greatest writer of his generation, David Foster Wallace was at the height of his creative powers when he committed suicide in 2008. In a sweeping portrait of Wallace's writing and thought and as a measure of his importance in literary history, The Legacy of David Foster Wallace gathers cutting-edge, field-defining scholarship by critics alongside remembrances by many of his writer friends, who include some of the world's most influential authors. In this elegant volume, literary critics scrutinize the existing Wallace scholarship and at the same time pioneer new ways of understanding Wallace's fiction and journalism. In critical essays exploring a variety of topics - including Wallace's relationship to American literary history, his place in literary journalism, his complicated relationship to his postmodernist predecessors, the formal difficulties of his 1996 magnum opus Infinite Jest, his environmental imagination, and the "social life" of his fiction and nonfiction - contributors plumb sources as diverse as Amazon.com reader recommendations, professional book reviews, the 2009 Infinite Summer project, and the David Foster Wallace archive at the University of Texas's Harry Ransom Center. The creative writers - including Don DeLillo, Jonathan Franzen, George Saunders, Rick Moody, Dave Eggers, and David Lipsky, and Wallace's Little, Brown editor, Michael Pietsch - reflect on the person behind the volumes of fiction and nonfiction created during the author's too-short life. All of the essays, critical and creative alike, are written in an accessible style that does not presume any background in Wallace criticism. Whether the reader is an expert in all things David Foster Wallace, a casual fan of his fiction and nonfiction, or completely new to Wallace, The Legacy of David Foster Wallace will reveal the power and innovation that defined his contribution to literary life and to self-understanding. This illuminating volume is destined to shape our understanding of Wallace, his writing, and his place in history."--Project Muse
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Subject Wallace, David Foster -- Criticism and interpretation
SUBJECT Wallace, David Foster fast
Wallace, David Foster 1962-2008 gnd
Subject American literature -- History and criticism.
LITERARY CRITICISM -- American -- General.
American literature
Genre/Form Criticism, interpretation, etc.
Form Electronic book
Author Cohen, Samuel S., editor.
Konstantinou, Lee, editor
LC no. 2011042542
ISBN 9781609381042
1609381041