In this episode, we talk with Jeff Severs, author of the excellent new book David Foster Wallace’s Balancing Books: Fictions of Value, published by Columbia University Press. Severs is associate professor of English at the University of British Columbia, Canada, Convexity.
Severs is also a noted Pynchon scholar, author of a number of scholarly articles and co-editor of a book about Against the Day.
His website can be found at https://jeffreysevers.wordpress.com/
Show Notes
1:00 - Introductions
2:40 - Austinites
3:34 - James Manguson
5:00 - MFA programs
6:10 - Mary Carter - the name Matt was trying to think of
7:50 - Overview of the book
9:05 - Balance in general
10:05 - Axiology - study of valuation
13:06 - Heidegger defines axios
17:18 - A Tripartite writer
26:26 - A biographical approach
34:15 - Juxtaposing hard labor with a dissolute consumerist society
40:31 - GQ, Obama, rhetoric, 2008
46:53 - The civic vision of the Pale King
1:35:40 - Jeff correctly picks Moonlight as the Best Picture winner!