William V. Spanos

William Vaios Spanos (31 December 1924 – 29 December 2017) was an American literary critic.

Spanos was a Distinguished Professor of English and comparative literature at Binghamton University (SUNY) and was a founder and editor of the critical journal ''boundary 2''. His work draws heavily on the philosophical legacy of Martin Heidegger, and while it does show the influence of the deconstruction of Jacques Derrida and Paul de Man, Spanos's vocabulary and concepts remain closer to Heidegger's ''Destruktion'' ("destruction") of metaphysics than to its philosophical successors.

Spanos took a post-modern approach to the West, globalization, colonization, and general interventionist foreign policy. He talked about a problem/solution mindset that America was in during the Vietnam War, and how all foreign policy now is still stuck in this framework. Spanos' work derives from philosophers ranging from Heidegger and Nietzsche to Foucault. Provided by Wikipedia