‘Literary giant’ to speak at York on toleration
Posted on 29 October 2007
Professor Phillips will deliver the 25th Morrell Address, on 1 November 2007. The lecture is free and open to the public.
[Caryl Phillips's] books show a sensitivity to being an 'outsider' that make him an ideal lecturer on toleration
Professor Matt Matravers
The public lectures are organised by the Morrell Centre for Toleration, which established its programme in the University’s Department of Politics in 1980, using funding from the C and J B Morrell Trust. Since 1981, academics, politicians, lawyers and broadcasters, ranging from Professor Baroness Susan Greenfield to Sir Edward Heath, and Baroness Helena Kennedy QC to Mark Tully, have been invited to York to speak on issues surrounding Toleration.
Born in St Kitts, Caryl Phillips grew up in Leeds, and studied English Literature at Oxford University. He began writing for the theatre as well as dramas and documentaries for radio and television. He wrote the film of his own novel The Final Passage, and an award-winning screenplay for the Merchant Ivory adaptation of V.S.Naipaul’s The Mystic Masseur (2001). His non-fiction includes The European Tribe (1987), The Atlantic Sound (2000), and A New World Order (2001).
He was named Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year in 1992 and was on the 1993 Granta list of Best of Young British Writers. His literary awards include the Martin Luther King Memorial Prize and a Guggenheim Fellowship.
He has taught at universities in Ghana, Sweden, Singapore, Barbados, India, and the United States, and in 1999 was the University of the West Indies Humanities Scholar of the Year. He is currently Professor of English at Yale University. He received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of York in 2003.
Professor Matt Matravers, a Morrell Trustee who is also Head of Politics at York, said "We are thrilled that Caryl Phillips has agreed to give this year’s Morrell Address. His books show a sensitivity to being an 'outsider' that make him an ideal lecturer on toleration. I hope that many members of the public will join staff and students at the University to hear him speak on 1 November."
ENDS
Notes to editors:
- Since 1980 the Politics Department at the University of York has been home to the Morrell Centre for Toleration, which is funded by the C and J B Morrell Trust. The Trust supports a wide range of activities in political philosophy, including an annual Address on Toleration, regular conferences on the philosophical foundations of toleration, and funding for students who wish to register for the MA in Political Philosophy (The Idea of Toleration).
- The Department of Politics at York provides a stimulating and friendly environment for students. It is consistently ranked amongst the top six centres for teaching and research in Politics and International Studies and was awarded a ‘5A/5*’ in the latest Research Assessment Exercise and maximum ‘24/24’ by the Quality Assurance Agency for teaching quality.
- The Morrell Address is at 6.30pm on Thursday 1 November, in P/X001 in the Physics Building at the University of York. Entry is free and all are welcome.