- 2018: UEA Literary Festival, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK
- 2018: BOZAR, Brussels, Belgium [Keynote Speaker]
- 2018: Jean Rhys: Transmission Lines, Sorbonne University, Paris, France [Guest Speaker]
- 2018: Britain in the World: Day Symposium on the Writings of Caryl Phillips, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK
- 2018: British Commonwealth and Postcolonial Studies Conference, Savannah, GA [Keynote Speaker]
- 2018: Key West Literary Seminar, Key West, FL
- 2017: Black Arts International: Temporalities & Territories, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL
- 2017: Wells Fargo Distinguished Lecture Series, CLAW: The Carolina Lowcountry and Atlantic World Program, College of Charleston, Charleston, SC
- 2017: Inhabiting the voids of History: A conference on Caryl Phillips, Caen, France
- 2017: Susan Manning Lecture, University of Edinburgh, Scotland
- 2017: Petrou Lecture, University of Maryland, MD
- 2017: Forming Black Britain: Aesthetics, Itineraries, Diasporas, University of Maryland, MD [Keynote Speaker]
- 2017: Illuminating Lives: The Biographical Impulse in Postcolonial Literatures, University of Liege, Belgium [Keynote Speaker]
- 2016: The Folio Academy Sessions, The British Library, London, UK [Curator]
- 2016: Oluwale Now, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK [Keynote Speaker]
- 2016: The Caribbean Imaginary Lecture Series, New York University, NY
- 2016: The Durst Distinguished Lecture, SUNY Purchase College, Purchase, NY
- 2015: Literary Leicester Festival, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK
- 2015: International Festival of Authors, Toronto, Canada
- 2015: Forty Years After: Chinua Achebe and Africa in the Global Imagination, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA
- 2015: Off the Shelf Festival, Sheffield, UK
- 2015: Ilkley Literature Festival, Ilkley, UK
- 2015: London Literature Festival, London, UK
- 2015: Lost Children: The Black Atlantic and Northern Britain – An Interdisciplinary Symposium, University of Central Lancashire, Preston, UK
- 2015: Altered States: Configuring Madness in Caribbean Literature, University of Liege, Belgium [Keynote Speaker]
- 2015: Cambridge Literary Festival, Cambridge, UK
- 2014: Rupture, Crisis, Transformation: New Directions in US Studies at the end of the American Century, Birkbeck, University of London, UK [Keynote Speaker]
- 2014: Imagining and Imaging the Greater Caribbean, Inaugural Conference, Columbia University, New York, NY
- 2014: French Association of English Studies, Caen, France [Keynote Speaker]
- 2014: University of Central Lancashire Distinguished Visitor, Preston, UK
- 2014: Bocas Literary Festival, Trinidad and Tobago
- 2014: Venice International Literary Festival, Venice, Italy
- 2014: Oceans in Literary Imagination and Historical Consciousness, New York University Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates [Keynote Speaker]
- 2014: Graham Storey Lecture, Cambridge University, UK
- 2014: Nobel Lecture, National Cultural Centre, Castries, St. Lucia
- 2013: Afroeurope@ns IV: Black Cultures and Identities in Europe: Continental Shifts, Shifts in Perception, University of London, London, UK [Keynote Speaker]
- 2013: Allen J. Koppenhaver Literary Lecture, Wittenberg University, Springfield, OH
- 2013: Cities by the Water: Post-Colonial History and Participation of Newcomers, Vancouver, Canada [Keynote Speaker]
- 2013: 'What is Africa to Me Now?', University of Liege, Belgium [Plenary Speaker]
- 2012: Adelaide Writers' Week, Adelaide, Australia
- 2012: The Postcolonial City 2012: Re-evaluating the Postcolonial City, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK [Keynote Speaker]
- 2011: Reconfigurations: Remaking Narrative, Reinventing Genre in Postcolonial and Diasporic Writing and Performance, Goldsmiths, University of London, London, UK [Keynote Speaker]
- 2011: Singapore Writers Festival, Singapore
- 2011: American Writers Festival, Singapore Management University, Singapore [Keynote Speaker]
- 2011: Paraty International Literary Festival, Paraty, Brazil
- 2011: Time of the Writer International Writers Festival, The University of Kwazulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa
- 2011: The Black Atlantic and the Biographical Turn: Slavery, Migration, and the Origins of the Modern World, National Humanities Center, Research Triangle Park, NC
- 2010: Pioneering the History of Black Britain: A Conference in Honor of James Walvin, Yale University, New Haven, CT [Organizer and Moderator]
- 2010: 'Off the Shelf' Festival of Writing and Reading, Sheffield, UK
- 2010: 'Something I Said?' Festival, Royal Festival Hall, London, UK
- 2010: Manchester Literature Festival, Manchester, UK
- 2010: Leicester O2 Academy, Leicester, UK
- 2010: Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival, The University of the West Indies at St Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago
- 2010: Giornata in onore di Caryl Phillips, University of Calabria, Italy
- 2010: Resident Writer, Interdisciplinary Seminar in the Humanities and Fine Arts, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA
- 2010: The Invention of Legacy: A Tribute to Hena Maes-Jelinek, Windsor, England, UK
- 2010: The Northcliffe Lectures in Literature: Writing in an Age of Terror, University College, London, UK
- 2009: SAMLA conference, Atlanta, GA [Keynote Speaker]
- 2009: Slavery and Literature Conference - Yale University, New Haven, CT
- 2008: EACLALS Conference – Venice, Italy [Keynote Speaker]
- 2007: A Triangular Traffic: A Symposium on Literature, Slavery, and the Archive, University of Dundee, Scotland, UK
- 2007: The Morrell Lecture, University of York
- 2007: Transatlantic Destinies, Dartmouth College, NH [Keynote Speaker]
- 2007: Cosmopolitanism and Globalization: Memory – Spaces – Cities – Images, SUNY Stony Book, Stony Brook, NY [Keynote Speaker]
- 2007: Beyond Blackface: African Americans and American Mass Culture, 1880-1930, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC [Keynote Speaker]
- 2007: Royal and Shirley Durst Lecture, SUNY Purchase College, Purchase, NY
- 2007: Ilkley Literature Festival, Ilkley, England
- 2007: European Perspectives on the Black Atlantic, University of Huelva, Huelva, Spain [Keynote Speaker]
- 2007: "James Baldwin: Work, Life, Legacies" Queen Mary College, University of London [Keynote Speaker]
- 2007: Passa Porta Literary Festival, Brussels, Belgium (Writer-in-Residence)
- 2007: John La Rose Conference, South Bank Centre, London [Keynote speaker]
- 2006: Galway Arts Festival, Galway, Ireland
- 2006: 25 Years of Writing – Caryl Phillips, University of Liège, Belgium [Keynote speaker]
- 2006: Fundamentalism and Literature, University of Münster, Germany [Keynote speaker]
- 2005: Africa '05: In Conversation with Chinua Achebe, South Bank Centre, London
- 2005: Sierra Leone National Book Awards, Freetown, Sierra Leone [Guest of Honour]
- 2005: The African Presence in Europe, Antwerp, Belgium [Keynote speaker]
- 2005: Necessary Journeys: An International Symposium about Artistic Journeys, Departures and Returns, London [Keynote speaker]
- 2005: Vancouver International Writers Festival, Vancouver, Canada
- 2005: WordFest Banff-Calgary International Writers Festival, Calgary, Canada
- 2005: Edinburgh International Book Festival, Edinburgh, Scotland
- 2005: Ilkley Literature Festival, Ilkley, England
- 2005: Sydney Writers Festival, Sydney, Australia (Times Literary Supplement Lecture)
- 2005: Auckland Readers and Writers Festival, Auckland, New Zealand
- 2005: Diasporic Dialogues: Race and Politics Across the Black Atlantic – University of Texas at Austin, TX
- 2005: Why Literature Matters – Yale University, New Haven, CT
- 2005: EACLALS Conference – Malta [Keynote speaker]
- 2003: Revisiting Slave Narratives – Montpellier, France
- 2003: Frontières – Paris, France [co-organizer]
- 2003: The Caribbean in New York and Paris – Bellagio, Italy [Conference organizer]
- 2002: Cairo International Film Festival, Egypt
- 2001: Voces del Caribe, Encuentro Internacional de Literatura, Madrid, Spain
- 2000: The Day of the Reader, Rotterdam, Holland
- 2000: Axial Writing Conference, Swansea, Wales [Keynote speaker]
- 2000: Edinburgh International Book Festival, Edinburgh, Scotland
- 2000: L'Écriture Multicolore Conference – Paris, France [Co-chairman]
- 2000: Literature and Society in a Postcolonial World – Liege, Belgium [Keynote speaker]
- 2000: "Textports" Conference – Liverpool Hope University, Liverpool [Keynote speaker]
- 1999: Conference of New Literatures in English, Tubingen, Germany
- 1999: Conference in Honor of Maryse Condé, New York, NY [Keynote speaker]
- 1998: PEN 65th International Congress, Helsinki, Finland [Keynote speaker]
- 1998: Contemporary British Writing Seminar, Brussels, Belgium [Chairman]
- 1998: Arthur Ravenscroft Memorial Lecture, University of Leeds, England
- 1998: British Council Cambridge Seminar, Cambridge, England
- 1997: 20th Galway Arts Festival, Galway, Ireland
- 1997: British Council Cambridge Seminar, Cambridge, England
- 1997: Contemporary British Writing Seminar, Brussels, Belgium [Chairman]
- 1997: Brighton Festival, Brighton, England
- 1996: Second Singapore Contemporary Literature Seminar, Singapore [Chairman]
- 1996: "The Caribbean Writer" Tenth Anniversary Conference, St Croix, USVI
- 1996: Contemporary British Writing Seminar, Brussels, Belgium [Chairman]
- 1995: First Singapore Contemporary Literature Seminar, Singapore [Chairman]
- 1995: In "Other" Words: Literature in a Changing Europe, Amsterdam, Holland
- 1995: Harbourfront Reading Series' Festival of Fiction, Toronto, Canada
- 1995: Perth Writer's Festival, Perth, Australia
- 1995: Contemporary British Writing Conference, Delhi, India
- 1995: Contemporary British Writing Seminar, Jaipur, India
- 1995: Walberberg British Writers Seminar, Cologne, Germany [Chairman]
- 1994: 19th Annual Chancellor's Conference on Composition and Literature, UCLA, Los Angeles, California [Keynote speaker]
- 1994: Vancouver International Writers Festival, Vancouver, Canada
- 1994: British Council Cambridge Seminar, Cambridge, England
- 1994: Paul Edwards Memorial Conference, University of Edinburgh, Scotland
- 1994: Oxford Conference for the Book, Oxford, Mississippi
- 1994: Walberberg British Writers Seminar, Cologne, Germany [Chairman]
- 1993: Finland International Writers Conference, Lhati, Finland
- 1993: Hay-on-Wye Literature Festival, Hay-on-Wye, England
- 1993: British Council Cambridge Seminar, Cambridge, England
- 1992: Hull International Literature Festival, Hull, England [Resident Writer]
- 1991: New Nation International Writers Conference, Johannesburg, South Africa
- 1991: The International Festival of Authors at Harbourfront, Toronto, Canada
- 1991: Cheltenham Literature Festival, Cheltenham, England
- 1991: British Council Cambridge Seminar, Cambridge, England
- 1991: Edinburgh International Book Festival, Edinburgh, Scotland
- 1990: New Zealand International Writers Festival, Wellington, New Zealand
- 1990: Adelaide Writers Festival, Adelaide, Australia
- 1990: Walberberg British Writers Seminar, Cologne, Germany
- 1989: British Council Cambridge Seminar, Cambridge, England
- 1989: Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies – Silver Jubilee Conference – University of Kent, Canterbury, England
- 1989: XIIth Annual Conference of German-Speaking Countries of the New Literatures in English, Giessen, Germany [Keynote speaker]
- 1988: British Council Cambridge Seminar, Cambridge, England
- 1987: International Conference of Contemporary Writing in English, Freiburg, Germany
- 1987: British Writers Festival, Hamburg, Germany
- 1986: The International Festival of Authors at Harbourfront, Toronto, Canada
Photo: Laurent Denimal
Photo: Don Usner
biography