Course: David Foster Wallace: Literature and Philosophy

If we understand the postmodern to be a disruption of prevailing narratives centred around truth and certainty, its literary techniques, amongst others, include: -self-reference – drawing attention to the text …

Wallace begins the article by seeming to follow the genre of a journalistic review for a culinary magazine, lulling the reader in before introducing his ethical question. He gives us …

How does David Foster Wallace present the world of television and the way it shapes our view of reality and ourselves? 1. What are the different meanings of ‘appearance’ in …

The short story, ‘My Appearance’ was published in 1989 in the anthology ‘Girl with Curious Hair’. I AM a woman who appeared in public on “Late Night with David Letterman” …

What are the different meanings of ‘appearance’ in the story? The driver’s head is ‘as still as a photo’. What is the relationship between reality and image in the story? …

Excerpts from ‘E Unibus Pluram: Television and US Fiction’ in A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again. The square parentheses are questions linking the essay to ‘My Appearance.’ We …

We share our thoughts on the discussion questions for ‘This is Water’. To what extent do you agree or disagree? 1. How does Foster Wallace use the parables or stories …

‘This is Water.’ David Foster Wallace. “Greetings parents and congratulations to Kenyon’s graduating class of 2005. There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an …