Dear Members of the Middlesex University Board of Governors:
I am writing to urge you in the strongest possible terms to reverse the decision to close the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy at Middlesex University.  As a scholar of Continental philosophy, I can assure you that the CRMEP is rightly and widely regarded as one of the world’s leading places for the study of French and German philosophy from the nineteenth century through the present.

I have the deepest respect and admiration for the faculty and students of this program.  Particularly thanks to the outstanding quality of its prolific and brilliant faculty, the CRMEP is internationally renowned as the top program for the study of Continental philosophy in all of the United Kingdom;  in fact, to repeat myself for the sake of appropriate emphasis, it’s one of the best departments in the world for work in this area.  Its size and success, as measured by a variety of factors (including the number of students there), testifies to its importance for teaching and research in this field.

Actually closing the CRMEP would be nothing less than horribly tragic.  It would be a terrible loss for the international intellectual community.  Moreover, it would amount to a gesture of irrational self-destructiveness, being a move that would severely (and pointlessly) damage the reputation of your institution.  For the sake of both Middlesex University and contemporary philosophical thought itself, I implore you to reconsider this ill-conceived closure of the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy.

Sincerely,

Adrian Johnston

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Dr. Adrian Johnston
Assistant Professor
Department of Philosophy
MSC 03 2140
1 University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, NM 87131-0001
Phone: 505-277-2405
Fax: 505-277-6362
E-mail:  aojohnston@yahoo.com