Phillip E. Wegner
Marston-Milbauer Eminent Scholar
 University Research Foundation Professor




Department of English
University of Florida


P.O. Box 117310
Gainesville, FL 32611-7310


Turlington Hall 4115
352-294-2813

pwegner@english.ufl.edu



Education:
Ph.D. from the Literature Program, Duke University, 1993
B.A. in Honors English, summa cum laude, California State University, Northridge, 1986



Selected Publications


Recent Courses


Recent Conferences Organized


The Summer Institute



A Few Useful Links



One could say that what identifies philosophy is not the rules of a discourse, but the singularity of an act. It is this act that the enemies of Socrates called: "the corruption of young people ". And because of that, as you know, Socrates was sentenced to death. "To corrupt young people" is after all not a bad name for the philosophical act. If you properly understand "to corrupt". Here "to corrupt" means to teach the possibility of refusing any blind submission to established opinions. To corrupt is to give to young people some means of changing their minds about all social norms; to corrupt is to substitute discussion and rational criticism for imitation, and even, if the question is a question of principles, to substitute revolt for obedience. But this revolt is neither spontaneous nor agressive inasmuch as it is a consequence of principles and rational critics. In the poems of the great trench poet Arthur Rimbaud we find the strange expression: "Logical Revolts". That is probably a good definition of the philosophical act.
Alain Badiou




Last revised: August 3, 2012





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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 from the depths of her dress sprang the odysseys and loves of the human animal who goes on living, who goes on speaking. 
Eduardo Galeano, The Book of Embraces

















My friend the Angel climb'd up from his station into the mill; I remain'd alone, & then this appearance was no more, but I found myself sitting on a pleasant bank beside a river by moonlight, hearing a harper who sung to the harp; & his theme was: 'The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, & breeds reptiles of the mind." 
William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven & Hell