Zeit, Affekt und lange Form: David Foster Wallace und Karl Ove Knausgård

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 577-593
Author(s):  
Nicola Glaubitz
Keyword(s):  
Reading Time ◽  
Information Overload ◽  
Formal Analysis ◽  
David Foster Wallace ◽  
Sich Eine ◽  
Affective Dimension ◽  
Infinite Jest ◽  
Diagnostic Power ◽  
Formal Feature

Abstract Wie organisieren, strukturieren und thematisieren lange Romane Zeitlichkeit? Und was erschließen Begriff und Erfahrung von Langeweile in Romanen der Gegenwart wie David Foster Wallaces Infinite Jest (1996) und Karl Ove Knausgårds Min Kamp (2009–2011)? Der Zusammenhang zwischen Lesezeit, ihrer narrativen Strukturierung und Zeitsemantiken wird mit dem Begriff der ästhetischen Eigenzeit beschrieben. Mit Sianne Ngais Konzept des Stuplimen lässt sich eine spezifische Ästhetik der Langeweile (als Resultat einer Überforderung durch eine wenig oder gar nicht strukturierte Detailfülle) auch als formales Merkmal des Langromans in der Tradition der Moderne und Postmoderne beschreiben. Ohne die Berücksichtigung der affektiven Dimension von Langeweile und ihrer Bewältigung (z. B. durch <?page nr="593"?>Leserituale und -routinen) sowohl im Leseprozess als auch auf der thematischen Ebene wäre eine solche formale Beschreibung aber nicht vollständig, wie die Analyse des Ineinandergreifens von Zeitsemantiken und der Ausgestaltung der langen Form bei beiden Autoren zeigt.How do long novels organise, structure, and address temporality? And what kind of diagnostic power do notions and experiences of boredom have for contemporary long novels like David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest (1996) und Karl Ove Knausgård’s Min Kamp (2009–2011)? This essay introduces the concept of ,aesthetic individual time (Eigenzeit)‘ in order to analyse the nexus of reading time, its narrative organisation and temporality as a topic. Sianne Ngai’s concept of ,stuplimity‘ can describe a specific aesthetics of boredom not only as a result of diegetic information overload without any structuring devices but also as a formal feature of long novels in the modern and postmodern tradition. In a comparative reading of the two works, the essay argues that a consideration of the affective dimension of boredom and its containment (for example by reading rituals or routines) – both on the formal and the thematic level – is a vital supplement to a formal analysis.

scholarly journals A moral jester? : David Foster Wallace and Infinite Jest's hidden moral heart

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael GL Bacal
Keyword(s):  
Spiritual Growth ◽  
David Foster Wallace ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Infinite Jest ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Moral Dimensions ◽  
Society Today ◽  
Alternative Reading ◽  
Do So

In this thesis, I explore the frequently overlooked moral dimensions of David Foster Wallace's seminal novel Infinite Jest. I seek to propose, in spite of the commonly cited iconoclasm of the text, an alternative reading of it as an old-fashioned bildungsroman concerned with the possibilities of moral and spiritual growth. In particular, I illuminate the unconventional way Wallace reimagines classic narratives of redemption and salvation under the surface of the novel, and I develop a framework with which to understand their centrality. Furthermore, I address how this belongs to his larger attempts to reconcile many of the traditional thematic concerns of the novel with several of the challenges presented by the postmodern avant-garde. I argue that, in its efforts to do so, Infinite Jest helped to renew, in many powerful and unexpected ways, the classic story of redemption and offer a profound meditation on many larger ills plaguing society today.

scholarly journals CONCEPT OF FUTURE IN DAVID FOSTER WALACE’S «INFINITE JEST»

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (3(72)) ◽  
pp. 51-55
Author(s):  
K.A. Tokarev
Keyword(s):  
Time Frame ◽  
David Foster Wallace ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Contemporary Culture ◽  
Infinite Jest ◽  
American Writer ◽  
Time Period ◽  
Ecological Problems ◽  
New Type ◽  
Cultural Sphere

The article examines a novel «Infinite Jest» by an American writer David Foster Wallace in the context of postmodern paradigm and the following literary and cultural tendencies. On the basis of the works by cultural critics Simon Reynolds and Mark Fisher, who argue that contemporary culture lacks interest in future, the study focuses on time and its perception as a topic in the novel. The main goal of this work is to identify the novel’s images and motives that have a connection with the concept of future. The main points of the study are the reception of time through the introduction of new type of calendar in the novel, images of possible historic picture of the future (geopolitical tendencies, ecological problems, etc.) and the chosen time period in the narrative (ambiguous future). The article also provides an analysis of postmodern paradigm’s time frame for the clarification of the novel’s position in literary and cultural sphere during its development.

scholarly journals The Composition of 'The Depressed Person'

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Elliott Morsia
Keyword(s):  
Short Stories ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Writing Process ◽  
David Foster Wallace ◽  
Genetic Criticism ◽  
Infinite Jest ◽  
Traditional Notion ◽  
Depressed Person ◽  
The Relationship

Despite moving away from a predominant focus upon his most renowned novel Infinite Jest (1996) in recent years, David Foster Wallace studies has yet to broach more far-reaching questions regarding the textual status of Wallace’s work. This essay introduces the methodology of genetic criticism to Wallace studies, studying the composition of the short story ‘The Depressed Person’ in order to provide a template for much further genetic enquiry into Wallace’s canon. Genetic criticism involves the study of manuscripts and rough drafts with the aim of describing a process of writing. By treating text as process rather than as product, genetic criticism critiques the traditional notion of “the text itself.” Wallace’s writing shares a resistance to “finished products,” particularly after the publication of Infinite Jest, beginning with the volume of short stories Brief Interviews With Hideous Men (1999), in which the ‘The Depressed Person’ is collected; this is most emphatically the case for Wallace’s “unfinished” and posthumously published final novel The Pale King (2011), “the text” of which exists only in draft form. While reflecting on the relationship between the eponymous depressed person’s predicament and the story’s mode of composition, this essay moves on to consider the context for Wallace’s writing process in relation to influential modes of revision in modernism.

Big hopes for big data

2017 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 23-25
Keyword(s):  
Big Data ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Reading Time ◽  
Explicit Knowledge ◽  
Information Overload ◽  
Unstructured Data ◽  
Text Analytics ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Pertinent Information ◽  
Practical Implications

Purpose This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies. Design/methodology/approach This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context. Findings More than ever before, current organizations see knowledge as the key to success. The emphasis on effective knowledge management (KM) has increased accordingly. However, the ubiquitous nature of data available to firms means that conventional KM tools are largely incapable of coping with such an information overload. Big data text analytics offers considerably greater scope in this respect. Its tools and technologies can enable businesses to extract important information from masses of structured and unstructured data and convert the information into explicit knowledge that can be absorbed and exploited to help secure a competitive advantage. Practical implications The paper provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world’s leading organizations. Originality/value The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.

scholarly journals Social Media and Attitude Change: Information Booming Promote or Resist Persuasion?

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yizhi Wang ◽  
Yuwan Dai ◽  
Hao Li ◽  
Lili Song
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Attitude Change ◽  
Reading Time ◽  
Information Overload ◽  
Positive Information ◽  
Street Vendors ◽  
Attitude Test ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Single Category ◽  
Set Up

Emerging social media platforms such as Twitter and its Chinese equivalent Weibo have become important in information-sharing and communication. They are also gradually becoming stronger in guiding public opinion. When compared with traditional media, these platforms have salient characteristics, such as highly efficient dissemination of information and interactive commentary, which can contribute to information overload. In earlier research, only the effect of social media on attitude change has been studied, but the specific mechanism of this effect in the context of information overload has not been found. To answer this question, we measured the attitude change of participants after they read Weibo posts about street vendors. A 2 (post-attitude: positive posts vs. negative posts) × 4 (reading time: 35 vs. 25 vs. 15 vs. 5 min) experiment was set up, and the Single Category Implicit Attitude Test was used to measure the implicit attitudes. The interaction effect revealed that in both positive and negative posts, less reading time (i.e., information overload) had a stronger influence. Users were more easily persuaded by posts under high overload. Furthermore, the changes in the attitudes of users were not simply stronger with more information. We found three stages, namely, obedience, resistance, and acceptance, with different mechanisms. Therefore, in the positive information overload condition, the attitudes of individuals eventually change in a positive way. In the negative information overload condition, individuals tend to be biased against the group being reported.

scholarly journals Dostoevsky and David Foster Wallace: On Parallel Tracks?

2021 ◽  
pp. 134-154
Author(s):  
Ellen Chances
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
The United States ◽  
David Foster Wallace ◽  
Spiritual Values ◽  
Cultural Contexts ◽  
Infinite Jest ◽  
Crime And Punishment ◽  
The Brothers Karamazov ◽  
Brothers Karamazov

The article discusses ways in which David Foster Wallace engages with Dostoevsky’s life and works. The article points out that Wallace’s commencement speech, “This Is Water,” makes no direct references to Dostoevsky, yet the moral and spiritual values that he enunciates share common ground with those of the Russian writer. The article then turns its attention to Wallace’s review of four of Dostoevsky scholar Joseph Frank’s five volumes devoted to Dostoevsky’s writings, life, and the historical, intellectual, and cultural contexts into which they fit. Wallace admires the way in which Dostoevsky’s novels address important issues, including isolation and nihilism, facing Russia in the 1860s. The American writer sees a similarity between that isolation of the 1860s and the isolation prevalent in the United States in the 1990s. The article then analyzes Wallace’s 1996 novel, Infinite Jest, and the ways in which he indirectly weaves into the text references to Dostoevsky’s fiction, primarily, but not exclusively, The Brothers Karamazov. Also discussed are a few parallels with Notes from Underground, Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, and Demons. The article describes Wallace’s focus on the detrimental effects that isolation leads to in contemporary America. The article explains that Wallace declared that in Infinite Jest, he wanted to reflect the distracted, fractured way in which contemporary people think. The article states that given this goal, it makes sense that the references to Dostoevsky’s works in Infinite Jest are also fractured. They are in bits and pieces.

Jamesonian Interpretation of Post Postmodernism: David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest and The Pale King

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (02) ◽  
pp. 20310-20317
Author(s):  
Abdolreza Goudarzi
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Active Agent ◽  
David Foster Wallace ◽  
Late Capitalism ◽  
Late 20Th Century ◽  
Infinite Jest ◽  
The People ◽  
The Social ◽  
Basic Features ◽  
Fredric Jameson

Postmodernism and Post Postmodernism have dominated culture and literature since the late-20th-century and in basic features, they contradict each other. In Postmodernism, or the period known as the late capitalism by Fredric Jameson, some sort of fragmentation rather than totality is intended to control again the life of the people through the same media in a process known as consumerism; However, in Post Postmodernism, a new sort of humanism seems to be emerging by David Foster Wallace who shows not only the pain but also the cure. In fact, the subjectivity of man is given a niche, and also he is given a voice to express his thought, like the opportunity he has gained in the social networks like Facebook and Telegram, having made it paradoxically possible for him to have a sort of sharing among the fragmented individuals. In fact, every fragmented man can be an active agent, communicator, and finally a producer to bring meaning and discipline back to the life rather than a sole passive watcher, reader, and one way communicator controlled by the system as presented in the modern and postmodern works. Focusing on David Foster Wallace’s (1962-2008) novels—Infinite Jest (1996) and The Pale King  (2011), the aim of this article is to study these three novels through the critical gates of the philosopher, Fredric Jameson to open up the concepts of Post Postmodernism.

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