The Problem of Free Will in David Foster Wallace

This book argues that David Foster Wallace failed to provide a response to the existential predicament of our time. Wallace wanted to confront despair through art, but he remained trapped, and his entrapment originates in the 'existentialist contradiction

Autorentext

Paolo Pitari completed a joint PhD in English at the Ca' Foscari University of Venice and at LMU Munich. He is the author of numerous academic articles in literature and philosophy. This research was funded by the University of Venice, the JFK Institute of Freie Universität Berlin, and the DAAD.

Inhalt

Preface: The problem of free will

Introduction: The problem of free will in David Foster Wallace

Part one: Literary truth according to David Foster Wallace

Chapter 1: The influence of Leo Tolstoy's What Is Art? on David Foster Wallace's literary project

Chapter 2: The influence of Jean-Paul Sartre's What Is Literature? on David Foster Wallace's literary project

Part two: The problem of free will in David Foster Wallace's literary sociology

Chapter 3: The system of David Foster Wallace's literary sociology

Chapter 4: On narcissism: David Foster Wallace and Christopher Lasch

Chapter 5: On morality and the absurd: David Foster Wallace and Zygmunt Bauman

Chapter 6: On existentialism and capitalism: David Foster Wallace and Ulrich and Elisabeth Beck

Chapter 7: On ontological insecurity: David Foster Wallace and Anthony Giddens

Part three: The problem of free will in David Foster Wallace's fiction: A comparative reading of Fyodor Dostoevsky and David Foster Wallace

Chapter 8: A critical history of the philosophical criticism on Fyodor Dostoevsky and David Foster Wallace

Chapter 9: Fyodor Dostoevsky, Mikhail Bakhtin, and David Foster Wallace: United in existentialism

Chapter 10: The problem of free will in Crime and Punishment and The Pale King

Bibliography

Index