Harold Pinter and Academia - Academic Honours

Academic Honours

Among the honours received during his lifetime, Pinter was the recipient of 20 honorary degrees or fellowships conferred by European and American academic institutions, and he was an Honorary Fellow of the Modern Language Association of America (MLA) (1970). In 2006 Pinter was elected a "foreign member" of the Department of Language and Literature of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (SASA ), and he received the Serbian Foundation Prize and the St. George Plaque of the City of Kragujevac.

Although, also due to illness, he had been unable to travel to Stockholm in December 2005 to receive his Nobel Prize and to deliver his Nobel Lecture in person, presenting it on videotape instead, Pinter did travel to Turin, Italy, in March 2006, to accept the Europe Theatre Prize; there he was the subject of an international symposium, Pinter: Passion, Poetry, Politics, curated by his official, authorised biographer, Michael Billington, whose participants included "distinguished" academics from the United States and Europe.

He was the subject of two international academic conferences in March and April 2007. Viva Pinter: Hommage à Harold Pinter, Prix Nobel de Littérature 2005, Légion d'Honneur 2007, organized by Professor Brigitte Gauthier of the University of Lyon's Université Jean Moulin (Lyon 3), in Lyon, France, focused on connections between Pinter's support for human rights, his dramatic works, his poetry, and his films, hosting various events, including productions, panel discussions, and screenings for students, guests, and the public; it was held from 2 to 21 March 2007, with an international colloquium following from 22 to 24 March 2007.

In conjunction with Pinter's being awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters from the University of Leeds, School of English, on 13 April 2007, which he was able to accept in person, there was a three-day academic conference Artist and Citizen: 50 Years of Performing Harold Pinter at the University's Workshop Theatre, co-sponsored by The Harold Pinter Society, held from 12 to 14 April. The honorary degree ceremony on the 13th was conducted by University Chancellor Lord Melvyn Bragg.

In the spring of 2008, in absentia, Pinter was awarded the Doctor Honoris Causa by the University of Kragujevac. On 23 June 2008, he was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters from the University of Cambridge, in absentia.

On 11 December 2008, the press media reported that Pinter received an honorary degree (an honorary fellowship) from the Central School of Speech and Drama (CSSD), in London, also in absentia, as he "was forced to withdraw from the event due to illness."

In October 2008, two months prior to his death on 24 December, Pinter also became honorary president of the Central School of Speech and Drama, a constituent college of the University of London, and received his 20th honorary award, from that institution, on 10 December 2008, in absentia because of illness.