Ordinary Unhappiness - The Therapeutic Fiction of David Foster Wallace

By examining Infinite Jest, Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, and The Pale King, Baskin approaches David Foster Wallace not only as a fiction writer but also as a cultural critic and a moral philosopher whose formal innovations were intended as "therapies" for the pervasive diseases of our time.

List of contents

Introduction: Habits of Mind

1. Narrative Morality: On Philosophically Therapeutic Criticism

2. Playing Games: Infinite Jest as Philosophical Therapy

3. So Decide: Brief Interviews with Hideous Men as Philosophical Criticism

4. Untrendy Problems: The Pale King's Philosophical Inspirations

Conclusion: In Heaven and Earth

About the author

Jon Baskin is the Associate Director of the Creative Publishing and Critical Journalism program at the New School for Social Research and a founding editor of The Point.

Product details

• Authors: Jon Baskin
• Publisher: Stanford University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 31.08.2019
• EAN: 9781503609303
• ISBN: 978-1-5036-0930-3
• No. of pages: 277
• Series: Square One: First-Order Questi; Square One: First-Order Questi; Square One: First-Order Questions in the Humanities
• Subject: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > English linguistics / literary studies