Chapter 23 - Theorizing the Other

Summary

While scholarship and cultural commentary following Wallace’s death was laudatory, straying at times into the hagiographic, at a distance of over ten years, different currents in his legacy are emerging. As might be expected with the developing field of research into any author of such high profile, a second wave of more critical work followed that first wave of scholarship, grappling with problems and failures in the Wallace oeuvre once the work of establishing the field was complete. This exciting period in the growth of Wallace Studies focused particularly around Wallace’s treatment of gender and positions of racial and gender privilege occupied by his writing. This turn, which has enriched and enlivened the scholarly dialogue, anticipated by some years the resurgence of a conversation regarding Wallace’s personal behavior in relationships with women, but Wallace’s public reputation has also been deeply affected by this conversation. Picking up some of the themes identified in earlier chapters relating specifically to the writing, this chapter traces the development of Wallace’s critical and cultural legacy with reference to this confluence of conversations, discussing the emerging public imagination of Wallace as well as the evolving critical dialogue around the strengths and weaknesses of his work.