Major Conferences & Festivals
- 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