Did David Foster Wallace Lie on His Syllabi?
December 05, 2011

"[Y]ou hire a fiction writer to do nonfiction, there's going to be the occasional bit of embellishment.” David Foster Wallace

Last week, Katie Roiphe gushed in Slate about the "rigorous" and "honorable" syllabi from David Foster Wallace's teaching days, currently housed at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas, Austin. Of his 1994 course in Literary Analysis at Illinois State University (which Wallace taught when he was in his early 30s), Roiphe writes, "There is in his syllabus...nothing but rigorous honesty and tireless interrogation."

Read More