Freedom-from versus Freedom-to: A Dialectical Reading of David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest

What is it about?

Numerous scholars (and readers) of David Foster Wallace's major work Infinite Jest claim that the text constitutes a significant break with the cultural era of postmodernism and signals the beginning of a new period. This essay tests this periodizing hypothesis by submitting the text to the historicizing method of analysis developed by Fredric Jameson.

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Why is it important?

The assumption that Infinite Jest represents a fundamental break with postmodernism is today shared by many critics and readers of the novel. However, as the author of the essay argues, previous attempts of measuring the historical difference of the text have often run into a number of paradoxes. This essay offers a way out of this impasse by suggesting a different conception of postmodernism than the one dominant in the discussion so far.