Save Middlesex Philosophy

The following letter was sent to the Guardian and the THES, but both have declined to publish it.

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We, current and former students and staff of Middlesex University, wish to make plain our disgust at the behaviour of the Metropolitan police at the demonstration against tuition fee rises in London on 9th December. A Middlesex student, Alfie Meadows, sustained life-threatening injuries and underwent brain surgery as a result of an attack by the police. Protesters wishing to leave the demonstration had been told by police to exit via Whitehall, where many were then kettled and attacked. At around 6pm, the police launched a series of unprovoked charges, using horses, truncheons and shields on protesters trapped in Whitehall. Hundreds of peaceful protesters were lined up on the south side of Whitehall and witnessed these attacks.

Over the last month, we have been witness numerous times to police attacks on young protesters, many of school age, with nothing to defend themselves but their passion, anger and sense of injustice. The spectacle of brute, armed force marshalled against the young holds up an unflattering mirror to the society that condones it.

We would also like to draw attention to the disparity between the reportage and the images of Thursday’s protest. Television reporters relentlessly described the students as violent, while continually showing footage of police officers beating protesters. Do the broadcast media think that people are not intelligent enough to perceive the contradiction between what is said by reporters and what is shown via recorded images? The widespread and deliberate police provocation of protesters went largely unreported. It is also a mockery of justice to portray damage to a royal vehicle as having more importance than a potentially lethal assault by a police officer on an unarmed student.

Finally, we hope that the Government will now recognise that the problems its absurd approach to the funding of education are now generating are political problems, and cannot be resolved by the use of police force. If a Government seeks to rely on overwhelming force to maintain its position, then it will not take long for its legitimacy to crumble.

Zain Ahsan, BA student, Philosophy

Ali Alizadeh, PhD student and Visiting Lecturer, Philosophy

Éric Alliez, former Professor, Philosophy

Nisha Amin, MA student, Marketing

Tunç Aybak, Programme Leader, International Politics

Robin Bale, Phd student, Fine Art

Sarah Baker, Lecturer, Media and Cultural Studies

Julia Bard, Visiting Lecturer, Journalism

Richard Barry, Lecturer, Psychology

Anindya Bhattacharyya, former MA student, Philosophy

Richard Bornat, Emeritus Professor, Computing

Sarah Bradshaw, Principal Lecturer, Development Studies

Matthew Bury, Senior Lecturer, Design and Technology

Maggie Butt, Head of Media

Stephen Caldwell, BA student, Philosophy

Matthew Charles, Lecturer, Philosophy

Uracha Chatrakul Na Ayudhya, Lecturer, Business School

Cara Clancy, former MA student, Philosophy

Billy Clark, Senior Lecturer, English Language

John Coles, Programme Leader, Interior Architecture

Noyale Colin, PhD Student, Performing Arts

Katherine Corbett, BA student, Philosophy & MUSU Arts and Education Chair

Delia Cortese, Senior Lecturer, Religious Studies

Elizabeth Cotton, Senior Lecturer, Human Resource Management

Judith Cowan, PhD student, Fine Art

Olga Cretu, PhD student, Business School

Virginia Crisp, Lecturer, Media

Bojana Cvejic, former PhD Student, Philosophy

Anne Daguerre, Lecturer, Human Resource Management

Nadia Dalbani, BA student, Philosophy

Christina Delistathi, Senior Lecturer, Translation

Ferdinand Dennis, Lecturer, Creative and Media Writing

Karl Denson, BA student, Television Production

Mehmet Ali Dikerdem, Principal Learning Development Tutor, Institute for Work

Based Learning

Donna Edwards, BA student, Education and Philosophy

David Etherington, Principal Researcher, Department of Business and Management

Tom Eyers, former PhD student, Philosophy

Kate Fivash, BA student, Graphic Design

Vivienne Francis, Senior Lecturer, Journalism

Rory Gallagher, BA student, Fine Art

Nicola Goodchild, former BA student, Philosophy

Andrew Goffey, Senior Lecturer, Media, Culture and Communication

Raphaelle Gosden, BA student, Photography

John Grahl, Professor, Business School

Peter Hallward, former Professor, Philosophy

John Hammond, Senior Lecturer in Mathematics & Middlesex University UCU

Branch Secretary

Usama Hasan, Senior Lecturer, Business Information Systems

Sarah Hazell, BA student, Fine Art

Yaiza Hernández Velázquez, former PhD student, Philosophy

Dave Hill, Professor, Education

Johann Hoiby, BA student, Philosophy

Sian Howard, BA student, Fine Art

Elizabeth Lebas, Reader, Visual Culture

Aoife Macnamara, Director of Programmes, Fine Art

Manojkumar Iyer, President, Middlesex University Students’ Union (MUSU)

Gizem Zeynep İnceoglu, former MSc student, Business School

Irem Inceoglu, Research Assistant, Institute for Work Based Learning

Lucy Irving, Lecturer, Psychology

Ian Jakobi, former MA student, Philosophy

Charles Johnson, BA student, Music

Kieron Johnson, former BA student, Sonic Arts

Peter Kapos, former PhD student, Philosophy

Mark Kelly, Lecturer, Philosophy

Christian Kerslake, Senior Lecturer, Philosophy

Eleonore Kofman, Professor of Gender, Migration and Citizenship

Ben Little, Lecturer, Media and Cultural Studies

Jo Littler, Senior Lecturer, Media and Cultural Studies

Rachel Malik, Senior Lecturer, English Literary Studies

Andrew McGettigan, former PhD student, Philosophy

Farah Mendlesohn, Reader, Media

Whitney Mensah-Parker, BA student, Philosophy

Gregory Meredith, BA student, Philosophy

Kevin Morris, Deputy Director, Professional Development

Claudio Morrison, Senior Research Fellow, Human Resource Management

Kathleen Mullaniff, Senior Lecturer, Fine Art

Ozlem Onaran, Senior Lecturer, Economics and Statistics

Ngozi Onyejeli, Lecturer, Human Resource Management

Peter Osborne, former Professor, Philosophy

Dan Ozarow, PhD student, Business School

Rosa Nogués, former PhD student, Philosophy

Manuel Padovan, Chair of the School of Health and Social Sciences

Carola Palacios, Senior Lecturer, Theatre Arts

Constantina Papoulias, Senior Lecturer in Culture and Communication

Wesley Phillips, former PhD student, Philosophy

Keith Piper, Reader, Fine Art and Digital Media

Sebastiano Piva, BA student, Film, Video & Interactive Arts

Nina Power, former PhD student, Philosophy

Dáša Raimanová, BA student, Fine Art

Gianni Raineri, Senior Lecturer, New Media

Leena Robertson, Principal Lecturer, Education

Ian Roper, Principal Lecturer, Business School

Maria-Louise Rosbech, BA student, Philosophy

Stella Sandford, former Senior Lecturer, Philosophy

Nic Sandiland, Lecturer, Fine Art

Ian Saville, Visiting Lecturer, Theatre Arts

Tracy Sealey, BA student, Philosophy

Sylvia Shaw, Senior Lecturer, English Language

Edgar Schröder, Senior Lecturer, German

Javed Anjum Sheikh, MUSU Postgraduate and Research Students Officer

Kulwant Singh Sandhu, Senior Lecturer, Business Information Systems

Tamara Sivanandan, Head of Dept of Social Sciences

Matt Stern, BA student, Television Production

Vangeesa Sumanasekara, former BA student, Philosophy

Aaron Tan, former MA student, Philosophy

Hannah Tattersall, BA student, Philosophy

Spyros Themelis. Lecturer, Education

John Timberlake, Programme Leader, BA Fine Art

Demi Tofallis, former BA student, Primary Education

Pompilia Tudor, BA student, Journalism and Communication Studies

Jan Udris, Middlesex UCU Branch executive

Martin Upchurch, Professor of International Employment Relations, Business School

Hoi Yen Voong, BA student, Philosophy

Rebecca Walker, BA student, Dance

Josefine Wikström, former MA student, Philosophy

Rebecca Woodford-Smith, PhD student, Performing Arts

Sara Wright, Resources Officer, School of Health and Social Science

(116 signatures)

PLEASE NOTE:

1. Gary Lachman’s seminar on 16 December has been postponed until Tuesday 25 January, 5.30pm.

2. Rosa Nogues’ seminar on French feminism will continue in January. More details to follow.

Tuesday 7 December, 11am-6pm:

Workshop: The Humanities and the Idea of the University

Place: Saloon (M004), Ground Floor, Mansion Building, Middlesex University, Trent Park campus, Bramley Road, London N14 4YZ.

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PLEASE NOTE!

Gary Lachman’s talk on Cosmic Consciousness has been rescheduled from Thursday 9 December to THURSDAY 16 DECEMBER, 6.30pm.

Place: Saloon (M004), Ground Floor, Mansion Building.

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Friday 10 December, 4pm:

Introduction to French Feminism by Rosa Nogues, part III: Kristeva

Place: Room M222, second floor, Mansion Building.

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Tube: Piccadilly line to Oakwood station, free bus to campus.

All welcome to all events.

PLEASE NOTE

Tonight’s seminar by Christopher Norris will now begin at 6.30pm.

Room M013 (Blue Room), Mansion Building, Trent Park campus.

Philosophy Event at Middlesex, Tuesday 30 November, 5.30pm

Christopher Norris: ‘Aesthetic Ideology Revisited’

* * Please note the day (Tuesday) and time (5.30pm, not 6.30) * *

Christopher Norris has published numerous books and articles on continental and analytic philosophy, fusing the philosophy of language and philosophy of science with deconstruction and literary theory. In works such as Derrida (1987) and Deconstruction and the ‘Unfinished Project of Modernity’ (2000), he argued that, contrary to widely-held opinion, deconstruction is fundamentally opposed to postmodernism and relativism. In Language, Logic and Epistemology (2004), he combined deconstruction with modal logic, while other works, such as Truth Matters (2005) and On Truth and Meaning: Language, Logic and the Grounds of Belief (2006), develop novel theories of truth and realism. His most recent books include a guidebook to Alain Badiou’s Being & Event (2009) and Re-thinking the Cogito: Naturalism, Reason and the Venture of Thought (2010). He is currently Distinguished Research Professor in Philosophy at Cardiff University.

Place:  Room M013, Mansion Building, Middlesex University, Trent Park campus, Bramley Road, London N14 4YZ. NOTE ROOM CHANGE.

Tube: Piccadilly line to Oakwood station, free bus to campus.

All welcome.

Free public mini-course on French feminism by Rosa Nogues, starting Friday 26 November, 2010, 4pm.

Rationale: Feminist theory in France encompasses a field of thought much wider and more heterogeneous than that suggested by what has come to be known as ‘French Feminism’, a category coined by the Anglophone academy and mostly limited to the work of Cixous, Kristeva and Irigaray. The aim of this course will be to outline the different positions in French feminism at the time of the women’s liberation movement in France, and to explore some of the basic concepts and debates in feminist theory within the specific context of French feminist thought, such as the sex/gender distinction, the concept of difference, or the essentialism/constructionism debate. Pdf copies of texts will be made available a week in advance of each session. We will look at the work of key figures such as Simone de Beauvoir, Christine Delphy, Monique Wittig, Monique Plaza, Catherine Clément, Hélène Cixous, Julia Kristeva and Luce Irigaray.

Session I: Friday 26 November 2010, 4-6pm

Introduction to French Feminism

Reading: Simone de Beauvoir, Introduction to The Second Sex (1949); Christine Delphy, ‘Rethinking Sex and Gender’ (1993).

Optional reading: Monique Wittig, ‘The Category of Sex’ (1982); Hélène Cixous, ‘The Laugh of the Medusa’ (1975).

Session II: Friday 3 December 2010, 4-6pm

Luce Irigaray

Reading: Irigaray, ‘The Little Girl Is (Only) a Little Boy’, from Speculum of the Other Woman; ‘This Sex Which Is not One’, from This Sex Which Is not One.

Optional reading: ‘An Ethics of Sexual Difference’, from An Ethics of Sexual Difference; ‘Women’s Exile’, in Ideology and Consciousness, no. 1 (May 1977).

Session III: Friday 10 December 2010, 4-6pm

Julia Kristeva

Reading: Kristeva, ‘Approaching Abjection’ and ‘From Filth to Defilement’, in The Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection; ‘Women’s Time’, in Signs, 7/1 (1981).

Optional reading: ‘From One Identity to Another’ in Desire in Language: A Semiotic Approach to Literature and Art.

For pdf copies of the texts, please email c.kerslake@mdx.ac.uk.

Place: Room M222, second floor, Mansion Building, Middlesex University, Trent Park campus, Bramley Road, London N14 4YZ. NOTE ROOM CHANGE.

Tube: Piccadilly line to Oakwood station, free bus to campus.

This course is free and open to the general public. ALL WELCOME.