Two of the most powerful, celebrated American novelists in the last forty years are John Barth and David Foster Wallace. Barth's fictions and meta-fictions define postmodernism, while Wallace's writing contests postmodern assumptions and techniques. Barth and Wallace write encyclopedic fiction: long, exhaustive, hilarious, disturbing, and complicated narratives. We'll study Barth's novels, The Floating Opera, The End of the Road, The Sot-Weed Factor, among others. Our main texts by Wallace are a collection of essays, A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again and the massive (and infinitely rewarding) Infinite Jest. Format: discussion/seminar. Requirements: two papers, one on each writer, about eight pages each. Prerequisites: 100-level English course, except 150. Enrollment limit: 25 (expected: 25). (Post-1900)