Update: Registration Closed!

We are no longer accepting email registrations due to the overwhelming interest in the conference. 

If you submit a late registration, your name will be placed on a standby list according to the date we received your registration request.  If seats are available on the day of the conference, we will give priority to those on the standby list. 
 
We would strongly discourage anyone who isn’t registered from traveling far or sacrificing in any way to attend the conference as space is highly limited, and non-registered attendees may be turned away.

We apologize to anyone inconvenienced by this.

Conference Schedule

9:00 AM: Introductory Remarks

 9:00 AM- 10:00 AM—Panel One: “Consider the Career: Early Fiction to Late Non-Fiction”

Moderator: Brandon Beirne, NYU

Connie Luther, University of Calgary

“Allegory and Symbolism in ‘Westward the Course of Empire Takes its Way’: Postmodern Disclosure Disclosed”

Elizabeth Freudenthal, Georgia Institute of Technology

“David Foster Wallace, Embodiment, and Identity from the Outside In”

Adam Kelly, University College Dublin

“Democracy in America: David Foster Wallace’s Political Essays”

10:10 AM – 11:10 AM—Panel Two: “Filmic Entertainments”

Moderator: Carrie Shanafelt, CUNY-Graduate Center

Alison Wielgus, University of Iowa

“From the Abyss: James O. Incandenza and the Films of Infinite Jest”

Rodney Taveira, University of Sydney

“In the Face of David Foster Wallace”

David Hering, University of Liverpool

 “Dreams Within Dreams: Wallace, Lynch, Oblivion”

11:20 AM – 12:20 PM—Panel Three: “The Philosophies of David Foster Wallace”

Moderator: Nico Israel, CUNY-Hunter College and the Graduate Center

Maureen Eckert, University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth

“Where the Conversation Lapses…Understanding DFW’s Philosophy Thesis”

Thomas Tracey, Oxford University

 “‘Like The Sky’: Responsibility in Wallace’s Early Fiction”

Joshua Sperling, Yale University

“Reading Infinite Jest through Heidegger’s ‘The Question Concerning Technology’”

12:30 PM – 1:30 PM—Break for Lunch

1:30 PM – 2:30 PM—Panel Four: “The Biographical Question”

Moderator: Nick Maniatis, Melba Copland Secondary School, Canberra, Australia; Webmaster, The Howling Fantods

Erin Lee Mock, CUNY Graduate Center

“The Biography of Madness by Assemblage: The Case of David Foster Wallace”

Matt Bucher, Independent Scholar

“Fantods: David Foster Wallace, wallace-l, and Literary Fandom Online”

Christine Harkin, Independent Scholar

“Taboos, Discourse, and New Media: Blogging the Death of David Foster Wallace”

2:40 PM – 3:40 PM—Panel Five: “Language, Communication, and the Project of Wallace’s Fiction”

Moderator: Gerhard Joseph, CUNY-Lehman College and the Graduate Center

Mary Holland, SUNY New Paltz

 “‘To be a [. . .] human being’: Mediated Immediacy in David Foster Wallace”

Jon Udelson, The City College of New York

“Inconclusive Endings: DFW’s Search for the Right Word(s): ‘Planet Trillaphon,’ Broom, and “Good Old Neon’”

Timothy Jacobs, York University

“Infinite Geist: Lexical Investigation, Mediation, and the Ghost of the  Author”

4:00 PM – 5:00 PM—Keynote Address

Stephen Burn, Northern Michigan University

“Infinite Expansion Inward: David Foster Wallace and the Concept of
Character in Contemporary Fiction”

 5:00 PM – 6:00 PM –Reception

Registration

Although the conference is free and open to the public, space is limited, so we are asking that people planning to attend register ahead of time. To do so, please send an email with your name and institutional affiliation (if any) to: footnotesregister AT gmail DOT com , and you will be added to the list. Thank you.

Conference FAQ

WHEN? Friday, November 20th, 2009, from 9 am to 5 pm.

WHERE? The CUNY-Graduate Center, 365 5th Avenue between 34th and 35th Streets (across from the Empire State Building), in the Martin Segal Theater.

WHO? Open to the public. Registration details forthcoming.

CONTACT? footnotesconference AT gmail DOT com

Keynote Announcement

We are pleased to announce our keynote speaker, Stephen J. Burn.

Stephen J. Burn is the author of David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest: A Reader’s Guide (2003), Jonathan Franzen at the End of Postmodernism (2008), and co-editor of Intersections: Essays on Richard Powers (2008). He is an Associate Professor at Northern Michigan University.

Stephen’s keynote address is (tentatively) titled “Infinite Expansion Inward: David Foster Wallace and the Concept of
Character in Contemporary Fiction.”