Philip M Weinstein

Philip Weinstein grew up in the South, got his bachelor's degree at Princeton and then his doctorate in English at Harvard. Teaching at Harvard and then at Swarthmore, he has written nine books of literary criticism, beginning with Henry James, moving through British and European fiction, and eventually centering on the life and work of William Faulkner. He served as President of the Faulkner Society, and his Becoming Faulkner received the Hugh Holman Award as the best book published on Southern literature in 2009.For the last several years, his writing has turned from a professional audience to a more inclusive one. He has published two essays in Raritan, the last of which--"Soul-Error"--was chosen for Best American Essays 2020. That essay's central idea gave birth to a cluster of kindred essays, all of them concerned with our unpredictable trajectory through time and space. His new book of essays, entitled Soul-Error, explores what is both our gift and our curse: that we stubbornly misread--and creatively reread--ourselves and others as we move through our lives.