"I spent my years as an undergraduate studying theater until I realized I was going to graduate and had to do something proper with my life," he said.
This revelation sparked Phillip's career as a journalist, author and playwright -- a career which has earned him critical accolade, and now a Montgomery Fellowship at Dartmouth for the Summer term. Phillips is currently on campus teaching an English class titled, "Race and Class in Postwar British Fiction."
"I didn't want to just replicate a course I had taught before, so I chose some books and films from a range of courses and tried to find a unifying theme," Phillips said. "The thing that held them all together was the relationship between race and class in Britain."
As he arrived at Dartmouth only last Wednesday, Phillips said he is still familiarizing himself with his class and Hanover, but is excited to delve into his seminar.
"One of the great things about teaching in small institutions, such as Dartmouth, is that the classroom turns into a conversation," he said. "It's not just a teacher standing at one end pontificating."
In addition to his course, Phillips will give an open lecture reading of his autobiographical work "Growing Pains" on July 15. The event, to be held in Filene Auditorium, will focus on books that have had an impact on his life.
"I am aware of the fact that people are always telling students how to live their lives," Phillips said. "I tried to put something together about books that were influential to me and helped me along the path that it takes to become a writer."
Phillips will also be holding an informal dinner on Wednesday, which will be open to students not enrolled in his class.
"The fellowship program is quite rightly trying to get us to do a little more than just hide away in a classroom," he said. "They are allowing us to be a little more available to the entire student body."
Phillips was born in Saint Kitts in the West Indies, but spent the majority of his childhood living in London. Although he said he had always considered himself "a normal English kid who loved bad food and Monty Python," his debut novel, "The Final Passage," dealt with race issues in the Caribbean.
Many of his books touch on topics of race and slavery in an effort to "explain myself to the world and explain the world to me," he said.
"I find it surprising that more people don't write about this issue," Phillips said. "Being an American involves learning about issues with race and slavery, an issue that threatened to tear the nation apart for centuries."
Phillips initially moved to the United States as a visiting professor at Amherst College in 1990, and has since spent the majority of his career in the United States. He is currently an English professor at Yale University.
The Kenneth and Harle Montgomery Endowment was created in 1977 after the couple donated two million dollars to the College in order "to provide for the advancement of the academic realm of the College."
Since its establishment, the College has used the endowment to attract figures including Gerald Ford, Desmond Tutu and John Updike. Montgomery Fellows for Fall 2008 will include Joan Didion, John Abizaid and John Burns.
