Concavity Show
Concavity Show
Matt Bucher & Dave Laird
Episode 14: Discussing David Foster Wallace with Josh Roiland and his class at the University of Maine
1 hour 18 minutes Posted May 25, 2016 at 4:38 pm.
– Josh’s writing on Wallace
– Josh’s email intro to the class
– Class syllabus and reading list
– Reconciling Wallace’s death with his writing
– Starting the class with a discussion onsuicide
– Is Wallace’s writing autobiographical?
– The class on Twitter
– The Wallace community on Twitter
– When the class read Infinite Jest
– Meeting in different spaces
– The ending of Infinite Jest
– Is the graveyard scene real? What’s going onthere?
– Waiting for plotlines to converge
– Reading IJ in public
– The cliché of dudes/bros reading Infinite Jest
– The marginalization of journalism in Englishdepartments
– DFW’s exaggerations in non-fiction
– Your favorite Wallace piece?
– Your least favorite Wallace piece?
– How to teach Infinite Jest
– Class-created website about IJ
– What to read after Wallace?
– Your favorite Wallace character?
– Any huge takeaways from this experience?
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Show notes
In this special episode we talk with Professor Josh Roiland and his class at the University of Maine. Roiland is Assistant Professor + CLAS-Honors Preceptor of Journalism in the Department of Communication and Journalism + Honors College. Roiland’s class this semester was called “Consider David Foster Wallace” and they read a TON of DFW work. As part of their class project, the students also created a really useful website about IJ called Consider Infinite Jest https://considerinfinitejest.wordpress.com/
Josh has written a lot about Wallace and here are a few of his pieces we mention in this episode:
·        "Getting Away from It All: The Literary Journalism of David Foster Wallace and Nietzsche's Concept of 'Oblivion'"Literary Journalism Studies, Vol. 1, No. 2, Fall 2009, 89-105. (Revised and reprinted in The Legacy of David Foster Wallace, University of Iowa Press).
·        "The Fine Print: Uncovering the True Story of David Foster Wallace and the 'Reality Boundary'" Literary Journalism Studies, Vol. 5, No. 2, Fall 2013, 148-161. (Reprinted by Longreads; 10 Most Popular Exclusives of 2014).
·        "Spiritually Midwestern: What Middle America Meant to David Foster Wallace" published (w/essential footnotes maddeningly located on the side of the text) by A24 Film Studios "Just Words" site in conjunction w/the release of The End of The Tour. 
You can follow Josh Roiland on Twitter @JoshRoiland or check out his website: www.joshroiland.com 
SPECIAL THANKS are due to Justin Harlan-Haughey for his audio expertise.Thanks also to Robyn O’Neil, Parquet Courts, Josh Roiland, Derrek Schrader, Alex Abrahams, Emily McNair, Atticus Dennis, and Taylor Cunningham.
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Contact us at [email protected] @concavityshow