30 April 2010

Dear Vice-Chancellor,

I was appalled to learn that Middlesex University plans to close its Philosophy Department. Middlesex in general does not rate highly in the minds of humanities academics and students throughout the world, but there is an exception: its Philosophy Department, one of the most enterprising and innovative in the country, and one that is respected internationally for the work of its members. When a colleague and I recently planned a volume, to be published by Routledge, on the most important theoretical developments in the humanities, with an international team of 20 contributors, we invited not one but two members of the Middlesex Philosophy Department to be among them. This is only one small instance of the major part played by the Department in current humanities research, going well beyond the discipline of philosophy.

You perhaps don’t realise the damage you have already done to the University’s reputation. I appeal to you to reverse this decision as soon as you are able.

Yours sincerely,

Derek Attridge

————————————————————-
Professor Derek Attridge, FBA
Department of English and Related Literature
University of York
Heslington, York YO10 5DD
United Kingdom