ENGL 5042 Seminar: Walking Infinite Jest

David Foster Wallace describes Enfield, Massachusetts--an important setting in his 1996 novel Infinite Jest--as " a kind of arm-shape extending north from Commonwealth Avenue and separating Brighton into Upper and Lower, its elbow nudging East Newton's ribs and its fist sunk into Allston". Sound familiar? In this reading-intensive course, we'll study Wallace's opus alongside his other stories, novels and essays. We'll also take advantage of our location, and read as much of Infinite Jest as we can " on site" in Brighton and Cambridge. In walking the same paths as the characters, we'll bring ourselves that much closer to the work of one of the most influential writers of the last half-century.