SOC-130 A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again: David Foster Wallace and the Sociology of Entertainment
In the 1990s and 2000s, fiction author David
Foster Wallace published a series of essays on
Americans' efforts to entertain themselves. The
essays consider topics such as television
consumption, state fairs, talk radio, and luxury
cruiseliners. Challenging, provocative, and
funny, Wallace's essays explore rich sociological
questions about what drives us to be entertained
and how entertainment choices impact our
thoughts, identities, and relationships with
other people. Students will read and discuss
selections from Wallace's work, and the course
will culminate in a project that allows students
to analyze an entertainment of their own choosing.