Chapter 10 - David Foster Wallace and Attention

Summary

Wallace’s work exhibits a fascination with attention that is regulated and optimized through processes of self-administration, as well as an interest in how alertness and interest can be performed (I explored this in Contemporary Fictions of Attention, 2018). However, he also demonstrates a concern with forms of attention that do not just play out in the self-conscious practices of an isolated subject. Instead, his work also stages interactive moments of collective attention, such as the focus group in “Mister Squishy” or the game of Eschaton in Infinite Jest. This chapter will lay out a broader context for Wallace’s interest in attention, before going on to identify how Yves Citton’s notion of “attention ecology” might help to frame an argument about Wallace’s depictions of group attention.