2 May 2010

Dear Professors Driscoll, Ahmad, House and Esche,

I am writing to you in astonishment at the news that you plan to close the philosophy programmes at Middlesex University.

I have a great deal of fondness for Middlesex and sympathy for your mission: I taught in your English programme in 1996-7.

However, I am simply amazed that you plan to cut your philosophy programmes.

I am sure that many people within philosophy departments will write to you, rightly pointing out its international and excellent reputation within philosophy.

As someone working often on philosophical ideas in an English department, I want to stress the impact of the department and the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy on disciplines and academics outside philosophy strictly defined.

The international conferences and research seminars which the Centre has run over twenty have explored and introduced major figures to a wide interdisciplinary audience. The work of the very-well respected academics in the department has had a truly interdisciplinary national and international impact, and should, in my view, be cherished.

Personally, I learned a great deal from the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy which has influenced and shaped my work and thought.

I urge you to reconsider this decision.

Yours sincerely,

Robert Eaglestone
Professor of Contemporary Literature and Thought
Series Editor, Routledge Critical Thinkers,
Department of English
Royal Holloway, University of London