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.

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!