William Egginton | |
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| Born | 1969 Syracuse, New York |
| Occupation | Literary Critic, Literary Theorist, Philosopher, Professor at The Johns Hopkins University |
| Language | English, Spanish, German, Italian, French |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | Dartmouth College, Stanford University |
| Subject | Spanish and Latin American Literature, Cervantes, Borges, Fictionality, Psychoanalysis, Continental Philosophy |
| Spouse | Bernadette Wegenstein |
William Egginton (born 1969)[1] is a literary critic and philosopher. He has written extensively on a broad range of subjects, including theatricality, fictionality, literary criticism, psychoanalysis and ethics, religious moderation, and theories of mediation.
William Egginton was born in Syracuse, New York in 1969. He received his PhD in Comparative Literature from Stanford University in 1999. His doctoral thesis, "Theatricality and Presence: a Phenomenology of Space and Spectacle in Early Modern France and Spain," was written under the direction of Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht. He currently resides in Baltimore with his spouse, Bernadette Wegenstein. William Egginton is Decker Professor in the Humanities, Chair of the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures, and Director of the Alexander Grass Humanities Institute at the Johns Hopkins University, where he teaches Spanish and Latin American literature, literary theory, and the relation between literature and philosophy.[2][3]
William Egginton is the author of How the World Became a Stage (2003), Perversity and Ethics (2006), A Wrinkle in History (2007), The Philosopher's Desire (2007), The Theater of Truth (2010), In Defense of Religious Moderation (2011), The Man Who Invented Fiction: How Cervantes Ushered In the Modern World (2016), The Splintering of the American Mind: Identity, Inequality, and Community on Today's College Campuses (2018), The Rigor of Angels: Borges, Heisenberg, Kant, and the Ultimate Nature of Reality (2023), and Alejandro Jodorowsky: Filmmaker and Philosopher (2024). The Rigor of Angels was selected as one of the "Best Books of 2023" by The New Yorker[4] and was described as "challenging, ambitious, and elegant" by The New York Times, who included that work in its 2023 list of "Notable Books"[5] and as one of nine "Critics' Picks" in 2023.[6] The Rigor of Angels was also mentioned as a close contender for the New York Times "10 Best Books of 2023" during an episode of its The Book Review podcast.[7]
Egginton is the co-author of Medialogies: Reading Reality in the Age of Inflationary Media (2017) and What Would Cervantes Do?: Navigating Post-Truth with Spanish Baroque Literature (2022). What Would Cervantes Do? was the subject of a special issue of Hispanic Issues in 2023.[8] He is also co-editor with Mike Sandbothe of The Pragmatic Turn in Philosophy (2004), translator of Lisa Block de Behar's Borges, the Passion of an Endless Quotation (2003, 2nd edition 2014), and co-editor with David E. Johnson of Thinking With Borges (2009).
