Wallace and I - Cognition, Consciousness, Dualism in David Foster Wallace s Fiction

Though David Foster Wallace is well known for declaring that "Fiction's about what it is to be a fucking human being," what he actually meant by the term "human being" has been quite forgotten. It is a truism in Wallace studies that Wallace was a posthumanist writer, and too theoretically sophisticated to write about characters as having some kind of essential interior self or soul. Though the contemporary, posthuman model of the embodied brain is central to Wallace's work, so is his critique of that model: the soul is as vital a part of Wallace's fiction as the bodies in which his souls are housed. Drawing on Wallace's reading in the science and philosophy of mind, this book gives a rigorous account of Wallace's dualism, and of his humanistic engagement with key postmodern concerns: authorship; the self and interiority; madness and mind doctors; and free will. If Wallace's fiction is about what it is to be a human being, this book is about the human 'I' at the heart of Wallace's work.

List of contents

Introduction 1. "It’s much more boneheaded and practical than that": Authorship and the Body 2. "He’s a ghost haunting his own body": Cartesian Dualism in Wallace’s Ghost Storie 3. "The heat just past the glass doors": Therapy, Madness, and Metaphor 4. "(At Least) Three Cheers for Cause and Effect": Free Will, Addiction, and the Self

About the author

Jamie Redgate received his PhD from the University of Glasgow. His writing has been published in Critique, Electric Literature, with the Scottish Book Trust, and elsewhere. He was shortlisted for the Imprint Writing Award in 2018.

Summary

Drawing on Wallace’s reading in the science and philosophy of mind, this book gives a rigorous account of Wallace’s humanistic response to postmodernism, and shines a much needed light on the fundamental relationship in Wallace’s work between his characters’ bodies and the ghosts that haunt them.

Product details

• Authors: Jamie Redgate
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd.
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 30.06.2021
• EAN: 9781032093901
• ISBN: 978-1-0-3209390-1
• No. of pages: 188
• Series: Routledge Research in American Literature and Culture
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > English linguistics / literary studies; English, LITERARY CRITICISM / General, LITERARY CRITICISM / American / General, LITERARY CRITICISM / Modern / 21st Century, LITERARY CRITICISM / Modern / 20th Century, LITERARY CRITICISM / Modern / General, Literary studies: from c 1900 -, Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers, Literary studies: fiction, novelists and prose writers, Literary studies: c 1900 to c 2000