April 12

Consider the Lobster and other essays by David Foster Wallace

“To be a mass tourist, for me, is to become a pure late-date American: alien, ignorant, greedy for something you cannot ever have, disappointed in a way you can never admit. It is to spoil, by way of sheer ontology, the very unspoiledness you are there to experience. It is to impose yourself on places that in all noneconomic ways would be better, realer, without you. It is, in lines and gridlock and transaction after transaction, to confront a dimension of yourself that is as inescapable as it is painful: As a tourist, you become economically significant but existentially loathsome, an insect on a dead thing.”-David Foster Wallace, "Consider the Lobster"

"Given this article’s venue and my own lack of culinary sophistication, I’m curious about whether the reader can identify with any of these reactions and acknowledgments and discomforts. I am also concerned not to come off as shrill or preachy when what I really am is confused. Given the (possible) moral status and (very possible) physical suffering of the animals involved, what ethical convictions do gourmets evolve that allow them not just to eat but to savor and enjoy flesh-based viands (since of course refined enjoyment, rather than just ingestion, is the whole point of gastronomy)? And for those gourmets who’ll have no truck with convictions or rationales and who regard stuff like the previous paragraph as just so much pointless navel-gazing, what makes it feel okay, inside, to dismiss the whole issue out of hand? That is, is their refusal to think about any of this the product of actual thought, or is it just that they don’t want to think about it? Do they ever think about their reluctance to think about it? After all, isn’t being extra aware and attentive and thoughtful about one’s food and its overall context part of what distinguishes a real gourmet? Or is all the gourmet’s extra attention and sensibility just supposed to be aesthetic, gustatory?"-David Foster Wallace, "Consider the Lobster"

Opening Journal:

1-Do you eat lobster? If not, would you? If you would, how would you respond to DFW’s final set of questions? (Given the (possible) moral status and (very possible) physical suffering of the animals involved, what ethical convictions do gourmets evolve that allow them…to savor and enjoy flesh-based viands..?....Is [the] refusal to think about any of this the product of actual thought, or is it just that [you] don’t want to think about it? Do [you] ever think about [your] reluctance to think about it?”)

2-How would you respond to DFW’s claim about tourism? Do you agree? Do you disagree? Have you ever felt “economically significant but existentially loathsome” while traveling? Why or why not?

"The View from Mrs. Thompson's House" by David Foster Wallace: http://people.virginia.edu/~jrw3k/mediamatters/readings/cult_crit/Wallace_The.View.From.Mrs.Thompsons.House.pdf

In groups:

-How are both pieces environmental?
-How is Maine characterized? How is Indiana depicted? What details about both places stand out to you most?

-Which piece resonated with you the most? Why?

-If you were to design an environmental literature course which would you assign? "Consider the Lobster," "The View from Mrs. Thompson's House," or both? Why?

Homework:

"Hoods and the Woods: Rap Music as Environmental Literature" by Debra J. Rosenthal
(Please bring a favorite environmental/local/place-based song to play for the class)