Phillip E Wegner
Biographic Data
| ID | 1010381 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Phillip E Wegner |
| GIVEN NAMES | Phillip E |
| FAMILY NAME | Wegner |
| SIGNATURE | WEGNER P E |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Florida |
| ORCID | 0009-0001-1462-8435 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 16 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 1 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 15 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1993 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
A Future Worthy of Her Spirit
Klara and the Sun (2021), Kazuo Ishiguro's first novel after winning the Nobel Prize in 2017, takes the form of the classical dystopia, the privileged "socio-political subgenre" of contemporary science fiction. Ishiguro's novel is set in a near-future United States where humanoid artificial intelligences have taken up a prominent place in an advanced neoliberal economy. Like the clone children in Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go (2005), these AIs serve…
Fredric Jameson’s interesting pedagogy
A Story Where Something Turns Out All Right
In the current interregnum, there has, not surprisingly, been a great deal of interest in the literary dystopia. However, far less attention has been directed to the dystopia's precursor, the practice Tom Moylan identifies as the critical utopia. The author argues that we see a brilliant realization of the form in Mohsin Hamid's Exit West (2017). Exit West exemplifies Fredric Jameson's generic discontinuity, moving as it does from a realist mode …
The Cambridge Companion to American Utopian Literature and Culture since 1945
Providing a comprehensive overview of American thought in the period following World War II, after which the US became a global military and economic leader, this book explores the origins of American utopianism and provides a trenchant critique from the point of view of those left out of the hegemonic ideal. Centring the voices of those oppressed by or omitted from the consumerist American Dream, this book celebrates alternative ways of thinking…
Becoming Utopian
A dream of a better world is a powerful human force that inspires political activists and science fiction writers alike. In this book Tom Moylan – one of the pioneering scholars of contemporary utopian studies – explores the theory, the practice and the urgency of the utopian impulse. From the theoretical writings of Frederic Jameson, Donna Haraway and Alain Badiou to science fiction works by Kim Stanley Robinson and China Mieville, from Latin Am…
How to Fix this Intolerable Present with the Naked Eye; or, Periodizing the Contemporary
Fredric Jameson's meditation on periodization highlights some of the challenges involved in any effort to think the contemporary. This essay argues that the best way to narrate the contemporary is through science fiction and further develops this insight through a reading of the comic book series (1980) and film adaptation (2014) of X-Men: Days of Future Past
Imaginary Communities
Drawing from literary history, social theory, and political critique, this far-reaching study explores the utopian narrative as a medium for understanding the social space of the modern nation-state. Considering the narrative utopia from its earliest manifestation in Thomas More's sixteenth-century work Utopia to some of the most influential utopias of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, this book is an astute study of a literary genre a…
Are You Now or Have You Ever Been a Suvinian? Beyond the Moralizing Temptation; or, How Not to Read
This article begins as a response to a review recently published in Utopian Studies. It argues that the prescriptive forms of ethical criticism practiced in this review are symptomatic of more general trends in our scholarly communities. The article is modeled on Jacques Derrida's “Limited Inc a b c. ...” In his essay, Derrida illustrates the ways that genres such as the review, reply, and response open up the temptation to not read and to slip i…
The Event of 1907; or, James Joyce, Artist
In the history of modernism, the year 1907, like 1922, represents an underappreciated annus mirabilis, a year of miracles. Among the many artistic events to occur that year, perhaps none is more significant than James Joyce's completion of what would become the final story in Dubliners (1914) and a work Richard Ellmann describes as ‘his first song of exile’, ‘The Dead’. ‘The Dead’ achieves the indispensable breakthrough of bringing to a close Joy…
Postmodern Utopias and Feminist Fictions
Jennifer Wagner-Lawlor's Postmodern Utopias and Feminist Fictions represents not only a significant contribution in utopian studies; it is also a major intervention in contemporary literary studies and global cultural studies more generally. Each of the book's chapters is structured around a specific set of formal and generic questions, exploring in great detail and with a tremendous amount of insight recent feminist revisionings of older genres,…
Detonating New Shockwaves of Possibility
Detonating New Shockwaves of PossibilityAlternate Histories and the Geopolitical Aesthetics of Ken MacLeod and Iain M. Banks Phillip E. Wegner (bio) This woman from Oslo had on an enormous dress dotted all over with pockets. She would pull slips of paper out of her pockets one by one, each with its story to tell, stories tried and true of people who wished to come back to life through witchcraft. And so she raised the dead and the forgotten, and …
Life between Two Deaths, 1989 2001
Through virtuoso readings of significant works of American film, television, and fiction, Phillip E. Wegner demonstrates that the period between the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 and the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 fostered a unique consciousness and represented a moment of immense historical possibilities now at risk of being forgotten in the midst of the "war on terror." Wegner argues that 9/11 should be understood as a f…
Recognizing the Patterns
I argue that the question framing this symposium, "What Is Literature Now?" is itself always already an interrogation of the nature of globalization in our contemporary moment. I do so by way of a detailed discussion of William Gibson's most recent novel, Pattern Recognition (2003). The questions Gibson asks in this work concern the future role of one of the most important forms of modern literature, the novel, in a world in the midst of dramatic…
The Pretty Woman Goes Global
Research Article| September 01 2005 The Pretty Woman Goes Global: Or, Learning to Love ``Americanization'' in Notting Hill Phillip E. Wegner Phillip E. Wegner Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Genre (2005) 38 (3): 309–326. https://doi.org/10.1215/00166928-38-3-309 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Search Site Citation Phillip E. Wegner; The Pretty Woman Goes Global: Or, Learning to Love ``Americanization…
A nightmare on the brain of the living”
Life as He Would Have It
Jim (1901), Rudyard Kipling's celebrated portrait of India at the high watermark of British formal imperial domination, has long occupied a special place in the complex field of imperialist literature.' Although its chauvinistic and racist overtones are now generally acknowledged, Kim still represents for many-to borrow the words of Abdul R. JanMohamed-a positive, detailed, and nonstereotypic portrait of the colonized that is unique in colonialis…
Recognizing the Patterns
I argue that the question framing this symposium, "What Is Literature Now?" is itself always already an interrogation of the nature of globalization in our contemporary moment. I do so by way of a detailed discussion of William Gibson's most recent novel, Pattern Recognition (2003). The questions Gibson asks in this work concern the future role of one of the most important forms of modern literature, the novel, in a world in the midst of dramatic…
Life as He Would Have It
Jim (1901), Rudyard Kipling's celebrated portrait of India at the high watermark of British formal imperial domination, has long occupied a special place in the complex field of imperialist literature.' Although its chauvinistic and racist overtones are now generally acknowledged, Kim still represents for many-to borrow the words of Abdul R. JanMohamed-a positive, detailed, and nonstereotypic portrait of the colonized that is unique in colonialis…
A nightmare on the brain of the living”
The Pretty Woman Goes Global
Research Article| September 01 2005 The Pretty Woman Goes Global: Or, Learning to Love ``Americanization'' in Notting Hill Phillip E. Wegner Phillip E. Wegner Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Genre (2005) 38 (3): 309–326. https://doi.org/10.1215/00166928-38-3-309 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Search Site Citation Phillip E. Wegner; The Pretty Woman Goes Global: Or, Learning to Love ``Americanization…
Recognizing the Patterns
I argue that the question framing this symposium, "What Is Literature Now?" is itself always already an interrogation of the nature of globalization in our contemporary moment. I do so by way of a detailed discussion of William Gibson's most recent novel, Pattern Recognition (2003). The questions Gibson asks in this work concern the future role of one of the most important forms of modern literature, the novel, in a world in the midst of dramatic…
Life between Two Deaths, 1989 2001
Through virtuoso readings of significant works of American film, television, and fiction, Phillip E. Wegner demonstrates that the period between the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 and the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 fostered a unique consciousness and represented a moment of immense historical possibilities now at risk of being forgotten in the midst of the "war on terror." Wegner argues that 9/11 should be understood as a f…
Detonating New Shockwaves of Possibility
Detonating New Shockwaves of PossibilityAlternate Histories and the Geopolitical Aesthetics of Ken MacLeod and Iain M. Banks Phillip E. Wegner (bio) This woman from Oslo had on an enormous dress dotted all over with pockets. She would pull slips of paper out of her pockets one by one, each with its story to tell, stories tried and true of people who wished to come back to life through witchcraft. And so she raised the dead and the forgotten, and …
Postmodern Utopias and Feminist Fictions
Jennifer Wagner-Lawlor's Postmodern Utopias and Feminist Fictions represents not only a significant contribution in utopian studies; it is also a major intervention in contemporary literary studies and global cultural studies more generally. Each of the book's chapters is structured around a specific set of formal and generic questions, exploring in great detail and with a tremendous amount of insight recent feminist revisionings of older genres,…
The Event of 1907; or, James Joyce, Artist
In the history of modernism, the year 1907, like 1922, represents an underappreciated annus mirabilis, a year of miracles. Among the many artistic events to occur that year, perhaps none is more significant than James Joyce's completion of what would become the final story in Dubliners (1914) and a work Richard Ellmann describes as ‘his first song of exile’, ‘The Dead’. ‘The Dead’ achieves the indispensable breakthrough of bringing to a close Joy…
Imaginary Communities
Drawing from literary history, social theory, and political critique, this far-reaching study explores the utopian narrative as a medium for understanding the social space of the modern nation-state. Considering the narrative utopia from its earliest manifestation in Thomas More's sixteenth-century work Utopia to some of the most influential utopias of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, this book is an astute study of a literary genre a…
Are You Now or Have You Ever Been a Suvinian? Beyond the Moralizing Temptation; or, How Not to Read
This article begins as a response to a review recently published in Utopian Studies. It argues that the prescriptive forms of ethical criticism practiced in this review are symptomatic of more general trends in our scholarly communities. The article is modeled on Jacques Derrida's “Limited Inc a b c. ...” In his essay, Derrida illustrates the ways that genres such as the review, reply, and response open up the temptation to not read and to slip i…
How to Fix this Intolerable Present with the Naked Eye; or, Periodizing the Contemporary
Fredric Jameson's meditation on periodization highlights some of the challenges involved in any effort to think the contemporary. This essay argues that the best way to narrate the contemporary is through science fiction and further develops this insight through a reading of the comic book series (1980) and film adaptation (2014) of X-Men: Days of Future Past
Becoming Utopian
A dream of a better world is a powerful human force that inspires political activists and science fiction writers alike. In this book Tom Moylan – one of the pioneering scholars of contemporary utopian studies – explores the theory, the practice and the urgency of the utopian impulse. From the theoretical writings of Frederic Jameson, Donna Haraway and Alain Badiou to science fiction works by Kim Stanley Robinson and China Mieville, from Latin Am…
The Cambridge Companion to American Utopian Literature and Culture since 1945
Providing a comprehensive overview of American thought in the period following World War II, after which the US became a global military and economic leader, this book explores the origins of American utopianism and provides a trenchant critique from the point of view of those left out of the hegemonic ideal. Centring the voices of those oppressed by or omitted from the consumerist American Dream, this book celebrates alternative ways of thinking…
Fredric Jameson’s interesting pedagogy
A Story Where Something Turns Out All Right
In the current interregnum, there has, not surprisingly, been a great deal of interest in the literary dystopia. However, far less attention has been directed to the dystopia's precursor, the practice Tom Moylan identifies as the critical utopia. The author argues that we see a brilliant realization of the form in Mohsin Hamid's Exit West (2017). Exit West exemplifies Fredric Jameson's generic discontinuity, moving as it does from a realist mode …
A Future Worthy of Her Spirit
Klara and the Sun (2021), Kazuo Ishiguro's first novel after winning the Nobel Prize in 2017, takes the form of the classical dystopia, the privileged "socio-political subgenre" of contemporary science fiction. Ishiguro's novel is set in a near-future United States where humanoid artificial intelligences have taken up a prominent place in an advanced neoliberal economy. Like the clone children in Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go (2005), these AIs serve…
Art (9 works) · Sociology (9 works) · Aesthetics (7 works) · History (7 works) · Philosophy (7 works) · Utopian, Dystopian, and Speculative Fiction (7 works) · Art history (6 works) · Law (5 works) · Literature (5 works) · Politics (5 works)