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"In the shadows" : David Foster Wallace and multicultural America
This dissertation reads David Foster Wallace's literary output against the complicated history of identity politics and multiculturalism in America. Wallace's career coincides with the institutionalisation of second-wave feminism in the 1980s (including at his own university, Amherst College), the t...
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
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Department of English Language and Literature
2018
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| _version_ | 1867613230285717504 |
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| access_status_str | Open Access |
| author | Joffe, Daniela Franca |
| author_browse | Joffe, Daniela Franca |
| author_facet | Joffe, Daniela Franca |
| author_sort | Joffe, Daniela Franca |
| collection | Thesis |
| description | This dissertation reads David Foster Wallace's literary output against the complicated history of identity politics and multiculturalism in America. Wallace's career coincides with the institutionalisation of second-wave feminism in the 1980s (including at his own university, Amherst College), the turn towards multicultural education and alternative literary canons in the 1990s, and the rising tide of nationalism and right-wing patriotism after 9/11. I depart from the universalist, ahistorical, post-racial framework of traditional Wallace scholarship to consider the literary and rhetorical strategies that Wallace employs as he tries to make a name for himself and remain relevant in a time of rapid social change, shifting reader demand, and growing hostility towards the elite postmodernist style in which he was trained. I argue that Wallace's fiction is marked not so much by an effort to adapt the writing to be more multicultural, race-conscious, feminist, and so on, but rather by an effort to signal that the author is aware of multiculturalism, feminism, and race matters, and that he is on the winning side of the ongoing culture war. Looking at The Broom of the System, I highlight the negotiation that takes place in the book between Wallace's desire to appear as the erudite and masterful postmodernist, versed in the tenets of metafiction and poststructuralism, and his desire to appear as the sensitive white male, attuned to an increasingly politicised female readership. In Infinite Jest, I examine Wallace's attempt to almost "out-traumatise" black women's writing of the 1990s by delivering a sprawling anthology of white hardship and anguish (grounded mainly in upper-middle-class experience). In The Pale King and Wallace's other post-9/11 writing, I show how the author wraps his unmistakably conservative vision of America and American masculinity in socially liberal, progressive-sounding discourse. The postscript offers a brief reflection on the significance of Wallace's work in the age of a Donald Trump presidency, and suggests that Wallace, had he lived to witness the 2016 election, might not have been as unequivocal in his rejection of Trump as his admirers might assume. |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/26899 |
| institution | University of Cape Town (South Africa) |
| language | eng |
| last_indexed | 2026-06-10T12:32:50.328Z |
| license_str | Not specified — see source repository |
| provenance_str_mv | Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| publishDate | 2018 |
| publishDateRange | 2018 |
| publishDateSort | 2018 |
| publisher | Department of English Language and Literature |
| publisherStr | Department of English Language and Literature |
| record_format | dspace |
| source_str | UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| spelling | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/26899 "In the shadows" : David Foster Wallace and multicultural America Joffe, Daniela Franca English Literature This dissertation reads David Foster Wallace's literary output against the complicated history of identity politics and multiculturalism in America. Wallace's career coincides with the institutionalisation of second-wave feminism in the 1980s (including at his own university, Amherst College), the turn towards multicultural education and alternative literary canons in the 1990s, and the rising tide of nationalism and right-wing patriotism after 9/11. I depart from the universalist, ahistorical, post-racial framework of traditional Wallace scholarship to consider the literary and rhetorical strategies that Wallace employs as he tries to make a name for himself and remain relevant in a time of rapid social change, shifting reader demand, and growing hostility towards the elite postmodernist style in which he was trained. I argue that Wallace's fiction is marked not so much by an effort to adapt the writing to be more multicultural, race-conscious, feminist, and so on, but rather by an effort to signal that the author is aware of multiculturalism, feminism, and race matters, and that he is on the winning side of the ongoing culture war. Looking at The Broom of the System, I highlight the negotiation that takes place in the book between Wallace's desire to appear as the erudite and masterful postmodernist, versed in the tenets of metafiction and poststructuralism, and his desire to appear as the sensitive white male, attuned to an increasingly politicised female readership. In Infinite Jest, I examine Wallace's attempt to almost "out-traumatise" black women's writing of the 1990s by delivering a sprawling anthology of white hardship and anguish (grounded mainly in upper-middle-class experience). In The Pale King and Wallace's other post-9/11 writing, I show how the author wraps his unmistakably conservative vision of America and American masculinity in socially liberal, progressive-sounding discourse. The postscript offers a brief reflection on the significance of Wallace's work in the age of a Donald Trump presidency, and suggests that Wallace, had he lived to witness the 2016 election, might not have been as unequivocal in his rejection of Trump as his admirers might assume. 2018-01-23T12:04:14Z 2018-01-23T12:04:14Z 2017 Doctoral Thesis Doctoral PhD http://hdl.handle.net/11427/26899 eng application/pdf Department of English Language and Literature Faculty of Humanities University of Cape Town |
| spellingShingle | English Literature Joffe, Daniela Franca "In the shadows" : David Foster Wallace and multicultural America |
| thesis_degree_str | Doctoral |
| title | "In the shadows" : David Foster Wallace and multicultural America |
| title_full | "In the shadows" : David Foster Wallace and multicultural America |
| title_fullStr | "In the shadows" : David Foster Wallace and multicultural America |
| title_full_unstemmed | "In the shadows" : David Foster Wallace and multicultural America |
| title_short | "In the shadows" : David Foster Wallace and multicultural America |
| title_sort | in the shadows david foster wallace and multicultural america |
| topic | English Literature |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/11427/26899 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT joffedanielafranca intheshadowsdavidfosterwallaceandmulticulturalamerica |