Culture industries

Tim Adams interviews Karen Green about David Foster Wallace for the Observer; it is a good piece, distressing but good.

Should be finishing up rereading various stuff for my classes tomorrow (Marcel Mauss on techniques of the body and Peter Holland on "hearing" the dead Garrick speak for my drama lecture, a funny trio of theoretical readings for the novel class that includes a chunk of Ian Watt on realism, the opening chapter of Auerbach's Mimesis and some bits of Todorov). Instead got sucked in to rereading big swathes of Stefan Collini's Absent Minds. (The outsiders chapter is brilliant!) Collini is speaking tomorrow (Monday) at the Heyman Center on "The Idea of the University" (I will be introducing him there), and then again on Tuesday in the same place but at 5pm to the British Studies Group on the intriguing topic of "History in English Literary Criticism."

Upcoming

Next Tuesday at 6pm, I'll be moderating a conversation with Jonathan Safran Foer as part of the "Literature and Terror" series, sponsored by Columbia's Institute for Religion, Culture, and Public Life. The event is free, but I believe that tickets may be required.