Pre-written Business Correspondences and Computer Therapists: William Gaddis’s J R, ELIZA, and Literacies in Conflict
Rochelle GoldRochelle Gold brings Gaddis’s early critique of mid-century capitalism into contact with current criticism by Alan Liu and others, who suggest that humanists must bring their own questions, interests, and values to the table, rather than acquiescing to the economic logic of post-industrialism.
William Gaddis at St. Michael’s College: Memoir and Photograph
Mark MadiganMark Madigan shares a photograph of William Gaddis, captured by John Puleio, during one of his largely improvised lectures.
Gaddis Centenary Roundtable: Translating Gaddis
Yoshihiko Kihara, Sergey Karpov, Mariano Peyrou, Ali Chetwynd, Marie Fahd, Francine Fabiana Ozaki, Max NestelieievThis roundtable discussion of translating William Gaddis's fiction, with Spanish translator Mariano Peyrou, Portugese translator Francine Osaki, and Ukrainian translator Max Nestelieiev, took place online on September 3rd 2023. Russian translator Sergey Karpov and Japanese translator Yoshihiko Kihara, unable to join on that day, sent written responses to some of the roundtable questions, which have been incorporated below where the relevant question was asked. The transcript has been reviewed, annotated, and lightly edited for clarity and cohesion by roundtable moderator, Marie Fahd.
William Gaddis’s Frolics in Corporate Law
Lisa SiraganianLisa Siraganian, the J. R. Herbert Boone Chair in Humanities in the Department of Comparative Thought and Literature at Johns Hopkins University, applies her expertise in legal theory to Gaddis’s penultimate novel. Following discussions on business law and the controversial notion of corporate personhood, Siraganian reads Gaddis's fourth novel to explore how a business-dominated legal culture transforms our conceptions and narratives of the individual person.
Ecocritique between Landscape and Data: The Environmental Audiotour
Jussi Parikka, Paolo Patelli, May Ee WongThis article discusses the Environmental Audiotour—a work by Parikka, Patelli, and Wong through which art and technology intersect with environmental issues at the Helsinki Biennial 2023. The artist-researchers explore topics like rising sea levels affecting islands, how humans impact the environment, and ways to visualize environmental data. Overall, the authors use creative methods to understand and address environmental problems in today's digital world.
Thank you to the ELO 2023 conference, especially to its organizers, Daniela Maduro, Manuel Portela, Rui Torres, and Alex Saum-Pascual, who first hosted Professor Jussi Parikka as a keynote speaker at their conference in Coimbra, Portugal. This resulting publication is a collaboration with ELO 2023 and will also appear in their forthcoming conference publications.
Faire Exchange No Robbery: Critiques of Anthologies and Contracts in an Unpublished Gaddis Play
Jeffrey SeversWritten by William Gaddis in the mid-1940s, “Faire Exchange No Robbery” is a short, mock-Elizabethan play in verse, about early poetry anthologies and the death of Christopher Marlowe. Jeffrey Severs brings this unpublished document to light, finding in it the germ of Gaddis’s career-long interests in art’s relationship to commerce, and in the significance of contracts.
“Honored by the Error”: The Literary Friendship of Gaddis and Gass
Ted MorrisseySynthesising the published record, Ted Morrissey chronicles and analyzes the relationship between literary Williams Gaddis and Gass, which began in 1976 after Gass had helped secure the National Book Award for Gaddis's J R. Morrissey examines not only the pair's shared social history of meetings, conferences, and letters, but also examines the commonalities in their approaches to literature, and their affinities of taste, habit, and vision.
An Interview with Rick Moody
Jacob Singer, Rick MoodyMoody's interview is a story about how stories get published, the people who publish, and the perils of single-copy print manuscripts moving through FedEx prior to digital tracking, as well as: "a snapshot of the intricacies of culture as a whole". As an insider perspective on how literary influence operates to perpetuate a continuum, this interview contributes to our awareness of how 'maximalist' bravura epic-comic literature emerges from mimesis and adoration to seed lineage canons (Keaton, Beckett, Pynchon, Gaddis, Moody).
“A Long and Uninterrupted Decline”: Accumulation, Empire, and Built Environments in William Gaddis’s The Recognitions
Jack WilliamsJack Williams, after noting how the "depiction of U.S. imperialism in The Recognitions has received scant critical attention," gathers a selection of concrete descriptions in Gaddis's first novel of the "built environments" in the New York City and Paris sections, then demonstrates how these settings reflect and expand on the novel’s multi-pronged critique of postwar consumer culture.
Gaddis Centenary Roundtable – Artists in Non-literary Media Inspired by Gaddis
Ali Chetwynd, Edward Holland, Tim Youd, David Bird, Thomas Verstraeten, Stef AertsThis roundtable discussion chaired by Ali Chetwynd, featuring artists Stef Aerts, Thomas Verstraeten, David Bird, Edward Holland, and Tim Youd took place at the Gaddis Centenary Conference in St Louis, on October 21st 2022. It has been lightly edited for clarity. Transcript by Marie Fahd.
Gaddis Centenary Roundtable: “Teaching Gaddis Today”
Rone Shavers, Jacob Singer, Jeff JacksonChaired by Rone Shavers, transcribed by Marie Fahd, and joined by Jeff Jackson and Jacob Singer, this roundtable and discussion took place at the Gaddis Centenary Conference in St Louis, on October 22nd 2022. It has been lightly edited and expanded.
Gaddis Centenary Roundtable – Publishing in the Innovative Tradition: A Conversation
Edwin Frank, Martin Riker, Danielle DuttonThis roundtable discussion, featuring Danielle Dutton, Edwin Frank, and Martin Riker took place at the Gaddis Centenary Conference in St Louis, on October 21st 2022. It has been lightly edited for clarity and was transcribed by Marie Fahd.
"Trouble with the Connections": J R and the "End of History"
Benjamin BergholtzBenjamin Bergholz provides a detailed description of the neoliberal hellscape prophesized in J R. Bergholz identifies a dialectical relationship between our necessary failure as readers to fully comprehend the full details of J R's world, and the historical developments—mainly, the "end of history"—that drive this failure. He asks, how might Gaddis’s decision to impair the reader’s "ability to see what is happening" in the world of his novel help us better engage with "what is happening" in the world outside of it?
Vaihinger’s Not So Fleeting Presence: Gaddis, Ballard and DeLillo
John SoutterTraces of Vaihinger appear in Gaddis’s first novel, The Recognitions. But what of the rest of his corpus? John Soutter explores Vaihinger's influence on Gaddis.
The Specter of Capitalism
Joseph ConteIn his review of Thomas Travers' book "Peripheralizing DeLillo", Conte explores the thematic undercurrents of capitalism and its discontents across Don DeLillo's oeuvre.