Bolger Robert K. - Gesturing toward reality : David Foster Wallace and philosophy

Gesturing Toward Reality

Gesturing Toward Reality

David Foster Wallace and Philosophy

Edited by Robert K. Bolger and Scott Korb

Bloomsbury Academic

An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Inc

www.bloomsbury.com

Bloomsbury is a registered trade mark of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

First published 2014

Robert K. Bolger, Scott Korb and Contributors 2014

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

ePub ISBN: 978-1-4411-9206-6

Typeset by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India

For Dave

and

for Kate

Contents

Jon Baskin is a graduate student at the University of Chicagos Committee on Social Thought. He is also a founding editor of The Point . He is the author of Death is Not the End ( The Point , 2009) and Coming to Terms ( The Point , 2012), both works about David Foster Wallace. Baskin has other articles that can be found at thepointmag.com.

Andrew Bennett is a professor of English at the University of Bristol. He has published many books and articles on a variety of topics including: Ignorance: Literature and Agnoiology (Manchester University Press, 2009) and An Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory , 4th edn, with Nicholas Royle (Pearson Education, 2009), and Wordsworth Writing (Cambridge University Press, 2007).

Robert K. Bolger is the author of Kneeling at the Altar of Science: The Mistaken Path of Religious Scientism (Wipf and Stock, 2012). His research interests include philosophy of religion, Wittgenstein, and science and religion. He lives near Seattle, Washington.

Alexis Burgess is an assistant professor of philosophy at Stanford University. His books include About Being (forthcoming, Harvard University Press), New Essays in Metasemantics , co-edited with Brett Sherman (Oxford University Press, 2014), and Truth , co-written with John P. Burgess (Princeton University Press, 2011). He has also written many other articles and contributed chapters to various anthologies.

Maria Bustillos is the author of Act Like a Gentleman, Think Like a Woman: A Womans Response to Steve Harveys Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man (Accidental Books, 2009), Dorkismo: the Macho of the Dork (Accidental Books, 2009), and Inside David Foster Wallaces Private Self-Help Library ( The Awl , 2011). Maria is a regular contributor to the blog at The New Yorker . She lives in Los Angeles.

Leland de la Durantaye is a professor of literature at Claremont McKenna College. He is the author of Style is Matter: The Moral Art of Vladimir Nabokov (2007), Giorgio Agamben: A Critical Introduction (2009), and the translator of Jacques Jouets Upstaged (2011).

Allard den Dulk is tenured lecturer in philosophy, literature, and film at Amsterdam University College. In 2012, he completed his dissertation at the VU University of Amsterdam, analyzing the shared philosophical dimension of the novels of David Foster Wallace, Dave Eggers, and Jonathan Safran Foer. He has published several articles on the philosophical themes in Wallaces work and in the contemporary fiction it has inspired. For more information, see: www.allarddendulk.nl.

Patrick Horn is the executive director of the Office of Graduate Student Support Services at Azusa Pacific University in Azusa, California. He is the author of Gadamer and Wittgenstein on the Unity of Language: Reality and Discourse without Metaphysics (Ashgate, 2005) and several articles in philosophy of religion.

Robert C. Jones is assistant professor of philosophy at California State University, Chico. He is the author of A Review of the Institute of Medicines Analysis of using Chimpanzees in Biomedical Research, co-authored with Ray Greek, Science and Engineering Ethics , April 2013, and Science, Sentience, and Animal Welfare, Biology & Philosophy , January 2013, 28(1): 130. Robert has also published other essays on ethics and animal rights.

Scott Korb teaches writing at New York Universitys Gallatin School of Individualized Study and Eugene Lang The New School for Liberal Arts. Hes also on the faculty of Pacific Universitys MFA program. His books include The Faith Between Us: A Jew and a Catholic Search for the Meaning of God (Bloomsbury, 2007), Life in Year One: What the World Was Like in First-Century Palestine (Riverhead, 2010), and Light without Fire: The Making of Americas First Muslim College (Beacon, 2013). He is associate editor of The Harriet Jacobs Family Papers (UNC Press, 2008), which was awarded the 2009 J. Franklin Jameson Prize by the American Historical Association.

Ryan David Mullins is currently completing his Masters Degree in philosophy at the University of Bonn as part of the Europhilosophie Mundus. He is the author of a number of articles in the field of autism studies. His interests comprise metaphysics, philosophy of physics, and philosophy of film. He also has an impressive Pez collection, which is nothing to sneeze at.

Randy Ramal is an assistant professor of theories and philosophy of religion at Claremont Graduate University. He is the editor of Metaphysics, Analysis, and the Grammar of God: Process and Analytic Voices in Dialogue (Mohr Siebeck, 2010), as well as various other essays.

Kevin Timpe is professor of philosophy at Northwest Nazarene University. He is the author of Free Will in Philosophical Theology (Bloomsbury, 2013), Virtues and Their Vices , co-edited with Craig Boyd (Oxford University Press, 2014), Arguing about Religion (Routledge, 2009), and Metaphysics and God (Routledge, 2009). He has also published articles in the area of metaphysics and free will.

Thomas Tracey is an independent scholar who holds degrees in literature from Trinity College Dublin, the University of York (UK), and St Johns College, Oxford. He has presented at conferences exploring the work of David Foster Wallace at the University of Liverpool and CUNY. He has also published an essay on Wallace and trauma in Consider David Foster Wallace: Critical Essays . He lives and teaches in Dublin.

Blakey Vermeule is an associate professor of English at Stanford University. She is the author of Why Do We Care About Literary Characters (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010) and The Party of Humanity: Writing Moral Psychology in Eighteenth-Century Britain (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000).

Robert thanks his co-editor Scott Korb for all his hard work and expertise without which this volume would have never been born. He also thanks his wife Lara and dog Annie for making life livable and wondrous. Thanks to professor Robert Coburn for providing the art for the cover of the book and for continuing to be an extraordinary friend. Finally, thanks to Dave for his friendship, kindness, and help in guiding me toward a spirituality of the tummy.

Scott thanks Robert in turn, along with his colleagues and friends, and students at NYUs Gallatin School of Individualized Study, Eugene Lang The New School for Liberal Arts, and Pacific University. Many thanks to all the contributors to this volume. And, as always, for everything, thanks to Kate Garrick.