Suttree paper, comments by DFW

Posted: March 10th, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: DFW | Tags: , , , | 8 Comments »

Shawn Miklaucic has shared a paper he wrote in 1997 for David Foster Wallace’s English 487 class. The topic is Cormac McCarthy’s Suttree and Fredric Jameson. Wallace’s annotations appear throughout. Thanks, Shawn!

Shawn Miklaucic Rnslish 487… by on Scribd

8 Comments on “Suttree paper, comments by DFW”

  1. 1 uberVU - social comments said at 4:45 pm on March 10th, 2010:

    Social comments and analytics for this post…

    This post was mentioned on Twitter by mattbucher: Here is a long student paper on Suttree, with annotations by David Foster Wallace: http://bit.ly/9h7hjg…

  2. 2 Trevor said at 5:05 pm on March 10th, 2010:

    Very cool to see Shawn’s paper here. I was in this same class in 1997, but wrote a very ham-handed essay on McCarthy’s A Frolic of His Own. Wallace’s comments were incisive, honest, a little mocking and, at times, devastating; I totally deserved it all, and more. His comments were in three different inks, too, so I know he spent more time reading it than I probably did writing it. DFW cared more about word choice, syntax and argumentative logic than any writing instructor I’ve studied under or known professionally.

  3. 3 James said at 6:48 am on March 11th, 2010:

    This is absolutely fantastic. All the comments I’ve seen from Wallace’s students are really incredible. It’s hard to think of another writer who was so devoted to his teaching, and received such uniformly positive responses from his students.

    My jaw dropped at the ‘Long-ass paragraph’ comment at the top of page three – from David Foster Wallace of all people. Pot/Kettle anyone?

  4. 4 Matt Evans said at 12:19 pm on March 11th, 2010:

    @ James:
    ‘Long-ass paragraph’ — that certainly made me laugh. What about ‘J is a wordy fucker, too’ at the top of page 19?

    Thanks, Matt, for posting this.

  5. 5 Nathan Caldwell said at 2:32 pm on June 16th, 2011:

    I literally LOL’ed at him referring to “problematize” as a “bullshit academic word” and his suggestion to “Shun it. Fly it. Trust me.”

    It would have been incredible (and intimidating) to have had him as an instructor.

  6. 6 hideous teachers « Chris Osmond said at 4:45 pm on November 29th, 2012:

    […] As a reader of student writing, he was monstrous. Max’s portrait of his teaching of writing shows someone simply unwilling to let people work beneath their potential. DFW read student work more closely than many of us read our most precious writing: three times, once each for general impression, for literary quality, and once for markup as if it were going to press (in a different color ink each time), and ended with a ton of handwritten or small-font-typed response (here’s an example). […]

  7. 7 Anya Deason said at 12:50 pm on September 30th, 2014:

    Thanks for posting that paper, featuring DFW’s meticulous grading style. His students really got their money’s worth, which is the best compliment a teacher can get.

  8. 8 Academic Links | the click of a well-made box said at 10:34 am on December 24th, 2014:

    […] Paper I wrote in grad school on Cormac McCarthy’s Suttree, with comments by David Foster Wallace. […]

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