John Wilson Foster

John Wilson Foster was born and educated in Belfast. He won a scholarship to Queen’s University where he read social anthropology, zoology, English and philosophy. As a postgraduate he studied aesthetics under the philosopher W.B. Gallie and the poet and critic Philip Hobsbaum. He won a Fulbright Scholarship to the University of Oregon where he completed a Ph.D. in Irish literature. From 1974 until 2002 he was Professor of English at the University of British Columbia of which he is now professor emeritus. In 2001 he was National University of Ireland Professor at NUI, Maynooth. After early retirement he was a Leverhulme visiting professor to the U.K., visiting professor at the University of Toronto and visiting fellow at the National University of Ireland, Galway.