Deconstructing metafiction: Infinite Jest of David Foster Wallace.

The criticism made by contemporary American writer David Foster Wallace to metafictional techniques of postmodern literature in his non-fiction work can sound false in the perception of the Infinite Jest, considered his masterpiece, if we consider that metafiction is one of the main power lines of this novel. When we compared the view expounded by the author in various media with an analysis of part of Infinite Jest, however, it is possible to understand that the author uses a kind of "meta-metafiction" to deconstruct the traditional techniques of metafictional postmodern literature. Yet checked by analysis, the author condemns the mass entertainment, overly simple, proposing a middle ground between literature that is concerned with the entertaining and hermetic literature. Keywords: David Foster Wallace; Metafiction; Infinite Jest

LIBERDADE À LUZ DO CÉU PROFUNDO: A NACIONALIDADE E A LITERATURA COMPARADA

This article aims at explaining conceptual transformations undergone by the idea of nationality during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, relating them to literary production and comparative literature. The freedom to associate ideas, cultures, texts of different countries is an essential comparative procedure also needed to understand the globalized world. These issues are studied in the novels Paradise, written by Toni Morrison, and Rosa Maria Egipcíaca da Vera Cruz, by Heloisa Maranhão, both first published in 1997. 

ACROSS GENRES: JOHN DOS PASSOS’S BRAZIL ON THE MOVE

This article analyses how John Dos Passos’s Brazil on the Move (1963) exemplifies the conventions of travel writing, on the one hand, and how it departs from them, on the other, in its representation of a foreign country and of its culture. I intend to discuss the relevance of this combination of literary genres in this book, considering the writer’s background, his writing techniques and the ideology/ies underlying his work.

ENSINO DE LITERATURA – CRÍTICA, TEORIA E HISTÓRIA

A partir de breve retomada da história dos cursos de graduação em Letras no Brasil, este artigo tem por objetivo discutir as circunstâncias da consolidação dos estudos literários na universidade. Estão no centro dessa discussão as características de duas modalidades de crítica literária. A primeira delas, conhecida como impressionista, era publicada nos rodapés de jornais nas primeiras décadas do século passado. A segunda, conhecida como crítica “de cátedra” (Rocha, 2011), ganhou corpo após a criação dos cursos de Letras, quando docentes universitários, então chamados de “catedráticos”, passaram a publicar textos críticos com base emnovas teorias, quase sempre assimiladas ou adaptadas do pensamento irradiado por outros países, como o new criticism, de origem norte-americana, ou mais tarde o estruturalismo, de origem europeia.  Métodos e abordagens situavam-se em campos antagônicos, fato que se modificou mas não se extinguiu. Em diferentes configurações, embates entre posturas antagônicas – por exemplo, entre a que privilegia componentes artísticos e a que supervaloriza componentes ideológicos – persistem até o presente, refletindo-se na pesquisa e no ensino de literatura.