INFINITE WALLACE
WALLACE INFINI

The Universities of Paris 3-Sorbonne Nouvelle and Paris 7-Paris Diderot are pleased to announce a 3-day conference devoted to the introduction of David Foster Wallace's œuvre, coinciding with the release of Infinite Jest in French (Editions de l'Olivier 2014) almost 20 years after its publication by Little, Brown and Co. The conference will be held in Paris September 11,12,13, 2014.
Since David Foster Wallace's suicide in September 2008, his works have growingly raised critical and academic interest in the United States and in the European countries where Infinite Jest has been translated (Italy and Germany). Although his essays, short stories and even his posthumous novel have been available in France for a number of years now, neither readership nor scholarly interest seem to have significantly broadened in this country.The forthcoming release of Wallace's Magnum Opus in 2014 at Editions de l'Olivier is the occasion to address a larger audience and survey the various published and presently emerging approaches to the novel as well as to introduce Wallace's entire œuvre. We welcome papers that focus on well-trod territories of 'Wallace Studies' and those exploring new aspects and themes of Wallace's fiction, novels and short-stories. Papers reconsidering Wallace's Infinite Jest and offering new theorical perspectives from the angle of 'such aliens' (Wallace, 'Fictional Futures') as French and Europeans thinkers are encouraged. We also welcome papers examining Wallace's nonfiction, reports, essays and philosophical writing.

Suggested items and directions include :
- The body : drugs and addiction. Sports (tennis) and play. Depression, suffering, melancholy, medication and suicide. Hideousness. Posthumanism.
- Reading David Foster Wallace. Translating David Foster Wallace
- Contemporary entertainment, the media, TV, movies. Carnival and Jest.
- Narcissicism and empathy. Ethics. Sincerity. Attention. Affirmation. Boredom.
- Wallace's literary influences. Metafiction, postmodernism, hysterical realism, post-postmodernism. Impact on contemporary fiction.
- Wallace and Co (Franzen, Eggers, Moody, Saunders, DeLillo…)
- Fiction and philosophy. The use of math, logic, science, medecine, psychology, technology. Free will.
- Ecology and the environment. Civilisation and society.
- Wallace's style. Irony, complexity, difficulty, infinity, excess. Essays, short-stories, novels. Comedy and laughter. Encyclopedic novel. System novel.
- -Terrorism and politics. Violence. Catastrophe. Capitalism. Mechandizing. Waste.
- Masculinities and femininities.

Please send us your 300-word proposals by September 1st, 2013 with contact and institutional affiliation.
beatrice.pire@gmail.com
pl_patoine@yahoo.fr
mduplay@club-internet.fr