education & teaching

education

• B.A. (Honours) The Queens College, Oxford University (1979)

honorary degrees

• Hon. D. Univ: Leeds Metropolitan University (1997)
• Hon. D. Univ: University of York (2003)
• Hon. D. Lett: University of Leeds (2003)
• Hon. D. Lett: University of the West Indies (2010)
• Hon. D. Lett: University of Edinburgh (2012)
• Docteur Honoris Causa: University of Liege, Belgium (2015)

teaching

• 2005 – present: Professor of English, Yale University, New Haven, CT
• 2002 – 2005: Director of Initiatives in the Humanities, Barnard College, Columbia University, New York, NY
• 1998 – 2005: Professor of English and Henry R. Luce Professor of Migration and Social Order, Barnard College, Columbia University, New York, NY
• 1997 – 98: Professor of English and Writer in Residence, Amherst College, Amherst, MA
• 1994 – 97: Professor of English, Writer in Residence, and Co-Director of Creative Writing Center, Amherst College, Amherst, MA
• 1992 – 94: Writer-in-Residence and Co-Director of Creative Writing Center, Amherst College, Amherst, MA
• 1990 – 92: Visiting Writer, Amherst College, Amherst, MA
• 1989: Writer-in-Residence, University of Stockholm, Sweden
• 1987: Writer-in-Residence, Literary Criterion Centre, University of Mysore, India
• 1980 – 82: Writer-in-Residence, Arts Council of Great Britain, The Factory Arts Centre, London

visiting positions

• 2018: UNESCO City of Literature Visiting Professor, University of East Anglia, UK
• 2017: The Don and Judy McCormack Endowed Visiting Artist-Scholar Residency, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY
• 2017: Visiting Professor, University of Liege, Belgium
• 2016: Kapnick Distinguished Writer-in-Residence, University of Virginia
• 2015: Millett Writing Fellow, Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT
• 2013: Walton Visiting Writer in Fiction, University of Arkansas
• 2013: Distinguished Scholar-in-Residence, University of South Florida
• 2009: Visiting Professor, Department of English, Oxford University, England
• 2008: Montgomery Fellow in Residence and Visiting Professor of English, Dartmouth College, NH
• 2005 – 2006: Visiting Professor of English and Weiss International Fellow in Literature and the Arts, Barnard College, Columbia University, New York, NY
• 1999 and 2000: Visiting Professor in the Humanities, University of the West Indies, Barbados
• 1994: Writer-in-Residence, National Institute of Education, Singapore
• 1993 Fall: Visiting Professor of English, New York University, New York, NY
• 1992 and 1993: Visiting Writer, Humber College, Toronto, Canada
• 1991: Visiting Lecturer, University of Poznan, Poland
• 1990: Visiting Lecturer, University of Ghana, Ghana
• 1983 – 1995: Writing Instructor, Arvon Foundation, England

courses taught

at Yale University

• Literature of the Middle Passage
• Advanced Fiction
• Contemporary British Fiction

at Barnard College

• British Fiction: Colonialism and Class
• Literature of the Middle Passage
• Writing and Society
• Fiction Writing
• Postcolonial Literature

at Amherst College

• Writing about Reading
• Advanced Composition
• Writing Fiction
• Writing, Writers, and Society
• British Fiction in the 1980's
• British Fiction: Colonialism, Class and Representation

courses taught elsewhere

• Post-Colonial Literature [Africa, Caribbean, Canada, India, and Australia]
• Caribbean Literature since 1945
• Writing for the Stage and Screen
• Fiction Writing [Workshop and Seminar form]