February 23, 2001

Little Pomona College Snags Big-Name Writer; University of Illinois, Heeding Faculty's Wishes, Hires an Academic as Chancellor

By SCOTT SMALLWOOD and JULIANNE BASINGER

No Joke: David Foster Wallace, whose mammoth novel Infinite Jest mocked omnipresent corporate branding by being set in times such as the Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment, has been named the Disney Professor of Creative Writing at Pomona College.

Although it may sound a bit, well, goofy, the chair at the California college wasn't endowed by the corporation that brought us Mickey and Donald. Instead Roy Edward Disney,