LEADER
John Riley has conducted many seminars on modern and postmodern novels by Camus, Márquez, Bolaño, Pynchon, Murakami, DeLillo, Joyce, and many others through Classical Pursuits and in his time as a Humanities instructor on the faculties of Benedictine University and Morton College.
BOOK
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
(Little, Brown and Company; 1996)
ISBN-13: 978-0-316-06652-5
Or this newer edition:
Infinite Jest (30th Anniversary Edition) by David Foster Wallace
(Little, Brown and Company; 2026)
ISBN-13: 978-0316602921
Note: There are several study guides for Infinite Jest, some available for free on-line or hard copy for about $15. A good idea for first-time readers to pick up one, but not required. Aim to read 500 pages before the first seminar.
SEMINAR DESCRIPTION
“Everybody’s got a thing, but some don’t know how to handle it.
Always reaching out in vain, just taking the things not worth having …”
— Stevie Wonder, “Don’t You Worry ‘Bout a Thing”
In David Foster Wallace’s world, we are defined by our obsessions. Tennis until you drop, anyone? How about fomenting a separatist movement in your free time? Alcohol and recreational pharmaceuticals 24/7, perhaps? What about losing yourself producing or watching films known as “entertainment cartridges”? Pick your poison and put all your faculties to work in pursuit of it while managing the consequences of the merciless control your obsessions have over you. Good luck, but—as Wallace says—”you’ll need much more than luck,” since finding freedom from compulsion is a hard, hazardous, humbling path. Warning: it can damage you and your connection to other people forever.
Harper’s Bazaar calls Infinite Jest “a sprawling piece of intellectual wizardry and social satire … at once serious, diagnostic, frightening, comic, and lyrical.” Weighing in at about 1,000 pages, Infinite Jest puts the “bucket” in anyone’s bucket list of readings. Reading this novel as part of a seminar is needed, not just to get through it, but to get all that is there out of it. Do not despair, however, it can be done! Yes, there is a lot of mind-boggling minutiae to sort through, yet somehow … it’s strangely approachable. It will be worth the trouble, no jest!
PRACTICAL DETAILS
All online seminars are priced in Canadian dollars.
Once you register, you’ll get an order confirmation. We’ll send you the Zoom link and a welcome letter from your leader about 3 weeks before the seminar starts.
Classical Pursuits will record this seminar, and make each session privately available to registered participants for up to two weeks after that session.
Online seminar payments are nonrefundable. Seminar group sizes are a minimum of 7 and a maximum of 12. See full terms and conditions for Classical Pursuits online seminars. By registering for a seminar, you agree to abide by our code of conduct.
