Jerry Phillips is an associate professor of English at University of Connecticut, Storrs, where he teaches U. S. literature and post-colonial studies. He was born in London and educated at the University of Essex, where he received his Ph. D. in 1991. He has published numerous essays on topics such as the image of the "urban underclass" in realistic novels, the colonialist and class politics of children's literature and films for children, and the public sphere debates over welfare and multiculturalism in the U. S.