The Howling Fantods

David Foster Wallace News and Resources Since March 97

  • Increase font size
  • Default font size
  • Decrease font size
Home News by Category Conferences Supposedly Fun Things Colloquium Review

Supposedly Fun Things Colloquium Review

Iain Williams has put together a review of 'Supposedly Fun Things: A Colloquium on the Writing of David Foster Wallace' held at Birkbeck, University of London [see previous update]:

[...]
Although the panels were each only an hour long, leaving little time for questions after papers had been given, the colloquium proved a stimulating forum for the continuation of Wallace Studies. The papers were of a consistently high standard, and the notable proliferation of scholars willing to resist or question existing critical and theoretical positions on Wallace points to promising new arenas for academic debate. Particularly, in relation to class, gender, and race. Extending my own paper’s emphasis on dialectics within Wallace’s work, the colloquium may have provided the first concerted evidence of a second wave of antithetical Wallace scholarship, suggesting that exciting times lie ahead for the fledgling discipline. Indeed, there may develop something of a split in Wallace Studies, with those who buy into Wallace’s self-professed attempts to write ethically and morally on one hand, and scholars that challenge Wallace’s politics of representation and his representation of politics, on the other. Future Wallace scholars may look back at this colloquium as the event at which the critical horizons of Wallace Studies were expanded.
[...]

I followed as much of the day's events as I could from here in Australia via twitter (which you can kind of do yourself here via Tony Venezia's Storify feed of the event).

I'm interested greatly in the papers presented in the first panel, mostly because I understand places like Wallace-l and this site were mentioned in the paper, but Iain William's review seems to focus on some of the other places Wallace fans also gather online. I'm not sure the review paints the full picture presented across the panel.

The final paragraph of the review (quoted above) seems to suggest this Wallace Studies thing is so new that it is only just maturing... I don't think that's the case. The Conferences and Critical Analysis articles I've posted here over the years tend to suggest otherwise.

I just hope the breadth and depth of the conversation doesn't end any time soon!

Share
Last Updated on Thursday, 19 March 2015 13:54  

The Howling Fantods