All supporters of the campaign are invited to celebrate Philosophy at Middlesex at the annual Philosophy Society party, Wednesday 5 May at 4:30pm, in the Drawing Room (M005) at Trent Park, and to rally in support of the ongoing student occupation of the campus.
Directions: Oakwood Tube Station (Piccadilly Line), 5 minutes free shutle bus to the campus (or 15 minute walk north on Snakes Lane). There’s a map here.
From the student occupation committee:
Last week, we were invited to a meeting with Dean of Arts Ed Esche and Deputy VC Margaret House at 10.30 on Tuesday 4th May (the day before our deadlines), to address our concerns about the closure of our Philosophy Department. Rearranging our commitments at great inconvenience to ourselves, we arrived at the campus for the meeting, only to find it that they had cancelled it the night before.
Security attempted to stop us entering the corridor and called the police, however the police decided to take no action. The students are now sitting in the board room (around 5 feet from the Dean’s office door), waiting for the Dean to show up and address our concerns.
Students are unanimous in our demand: allow us the meeting you promised us. We have voted unanimously to remain here in occupation in protest of the refusal to meet us.
[see educationactivistnetwork.wordpress.com for more photos]
m.driscoll@mdx.ac.uk,
w.ahmad@mdx.ac.uk,
m.house@mdx.ac.uk,
e.esche@mdx.ac.uk
Mon, May 3, 2010
Respected colleagues,
I’ve recently learned about the decision of Middlesex University to close the Philosophy programmes, and I would like to express my bewilderment and join the growing international protest at this irrational and most damaging decision. The Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy at Middlesex is widely and internationally recognised as one of the most important centres for the study of modern European philosophy. Many of its excellent scholars are recognized across the world as most eminent figures of contemporary philosophy. Their excellence extends to both their scientific and pedagogical work.
Our Institute is among the philosophical centres with which CRMEP and its scholars have collaborated in the past in a most fruitful way. I could thus say that closing of the Philosophy programs at Middlesex University would be an irredeemable blow for the development of international contemporary philosophical discussion. Moreover, Middlesex University has decided to close its CRMEP not only in the complete absence of any persuasive academic, but also economic rationale. I therefore call on Middlesex University to reverse this damaging and ill-judged decision to close its Philosophy programmes, and to renew its commitment to widening participation in education and to excellence in research.
Dr. Alenka Zupancic
Institute for Philosophy
Scientific Research Centre
Slovene Academy of Sciences
3 May 2010
Dear Michael Driscoll
I write to urge you to reconsider the recent decision to close all philosophy programmes at Middlesex. I have served your university as an external adviser for its Philosophy MA degrees and for a professorial appointment. I also serve as a reader and reviewer for AHRC, Leverhulme, the Newton Fund and many international research councils.
My close experience of the department is not only of uniformly high academic standards, but also very strong success in achieving grants and external support (for instance from AHRC and through the excellent RAE result). I can say with confidence that the potential for further external research funding and attraction of fee paying students is even greater than in the past, given the outstanding quality of staff research and academic programmes.
It is therefore a mistake to cut your flagship academic programme on academic grounds. But it is also a mistake in terms of future sources of funding and in terms of the wider social role of your university. I will be writing to my MP, Alistair Darling, and to Sir Alan Langlands at HEFCE to highlight the failure of your university to fulfill its wider mission as funded by government in relation to excellent research and its dissemination.
Yours sincerely
Professor James Williams
Department of Philosophy
University of Dundee
29 April 2010
Dear Vice-Chancellor Driscoll, Vice-Chancellor Ahmad, Vice Chancellor House and Dean Esche:
I am writing because it has been brought to my attention that you have decided to close all programs in Philosophy, together with the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy, at Middlesex University. I take this opportunity to express my extreme disappointment, consternation and disagreement with your decision.
I am an Associate Professor of Romance Languages & Literatures at The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. I am, however, a citizen of the United Kingdom and therefore have had direct experience of how undervalued philosophical reflection is at all levels of the British education system. After twenty five years living and teaching in the United States, please let me assure you that the only reason anyone in the United States has heard of Middlesex University is because of its programs in Philosophy, the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy, and the invaluable work of its flagship publication, Radical Philosophy.
Philosophy at Middlesex is an internationally respected beacon of light. I am an expert in modern and contemporary Latin American literature and cultural politics, with particular emphasis on their relation to the traditions of Western political philosophy and critical theory. I tell all my graduate students that they have to not only familiarize themselves with the debates generated by Radical Philosophy, but that they have to make the publication a central part of their professional development, a central part of their intellectual life. I have been saying this for years. Such is the influence of this publication beyond your shores.
I left the U.K. at the height of Prime Minister Thatcher’s decimation of the humanities and social sciences in the 1980s. Needless to say, I consider your decision to close Philosophy at Middlesex University to be a continuation and a confirmation of the blatant philistinism of those years. Your decision works for the intellectual impoverishment of the European university system as a whole. And it condemns the name and prestige of Middlesex University to absolute anonymity and obscurity here in the United States. In conclusion, I urge you to reconsider your decision.
Yours Sincerely,
Gareth Williams
Associate Professor of Spanish and
Latin American & Caribbean Studies
Department of Romance Languages & Literatures
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
U.S.A.
m.driscoll@mdx.ac.uk,
w.ahmad@mdx.ac.uk,
m.house@mdx.ac.uk,
e.esche@mdx.ac.uk
Thu, Apr 29, 2010
News that you are closing the Philosophy Department at Middlesex has been met with shock and disbelief from colleagues around the world. It is truly a staggering decision. I won’t speak about standards of intellectual and educational excellence, as these appear to be irrelevant here. Even on financial grounds, however, the decision makes no sense. It seems the Philosophy Department has not been losing money and that any discrepancy with respect to ‘targets’ is well within margins that allow for additional measures to resolve the situation. Simply to close the operation down is crass in the extreme.
Do you not know what this will do to the reputation of Middlesex as a serious institution? And without a good reputation, a university has very little.
Yours
Dr David Webb
Senior Lecturer in Philosophy
Secretary of The British Society for Phenomenology
Faculty of Arts Media and Design
Staffordshire University
College Road
Stoke-on-Trent
Staffordshire
ST4 2XW
Date: 29 April 2010 09:16:27 BST
To: M.Driscoll@mdx.ac.uk
Cc: w.ahmad@mdx.ac.uk, m.house@mdx.ac.uk, e.esche@mdx.ac.uk
Subject: On the closure of philosophy at Middlesex
Dear Professors Driscoll, Ahmad, House and Esche,
I am writing to express my shock and dismay at your decision to shut down philosophy at Middlesex. I can see no justification whatsoever for terminating a programme with a widely-recognised record of excellence and a crucial role in the academic and intellectual life of London and the UK. On your website you proudly state: ‘The most recent Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) cited Middlesex for its breadth of “internationally recognised” research.’ And yet you have decided to close the very department which the RAE results identify as the most “internationally-recognised” at Middlesex. The alleged motivation for closure is the absence of a “measurable” contribution by philosophy to Middlesex. If the only measure you accept is that of sizeable profits, that may be the case, but if so you have abandoned the very idea of what it means to run a university, where management is supposed to facilitate the work of teaching and research, rather than vice versa.
If Middlesex go ahead with this disastrous decision – whose unequivocal message is that the university is not interested in either academic excellence or its international reputation – the standing of your institution will suffer immensely. I hope you will reconsider this decision before irreversible damage is done to Middlesex University and to the future of philosophy in the United Kingdom.
Yours sincerely,
Dr. Alberto Toscano
Senior Lecturer
Department of Sociology
Goldsmiths, University of London
Sent: Thu 29/04/2010 21:55
To: Michael Driscoll; Waqar Ahmad; Margaret House; Ed Esche
Cc: savemdxphil@gmail.com; Kenneth Surin
Subject: Closure of Middlesex University Philosophy Department
Dear Vice-Chancellor, Deputy Vice-Chancellors, and Dean:
I write to express my profound dismay at the proposed closure of Middlesex University’s world-renowned Philosophy Department.
I taught at the Universities of Gloucestershire and Birmingham before coming to Duke University in 1987. I am currently head of its Program in Literature and Critical Theory. I teach modern European philosophy and critical theory.
Anyone who attends a major conference in the field of modern European philosophy anywhere in Europe and North America is likely to find a member of the Middlesex Philosophy Department staff giving a key presentation. Open a top journal in this field, and it is likely to have an article by a member of the Middlesex Philosophy Department staff. Open a book catalogue by a major university press, and its philosophy section is likely to feature a book by a member of the Middlesex Philosophy Department staff. I could go on in this vein.
Quite simply: this decision is unfathomable. At Duke University a department of this quality would be protected, and not only that, it would be given extra resources.
If the above is not clear to you, please give me a phone number where I can call you to discuss at length the merits of this superb philosophy department.
Yours sincerely,
Kenneth Surin (Prof.)
Professor of Literature and Professor of Religion and Critical Theory
Chair, Program in Literature
Campus Box 90670
Duke University
Durham NC 27708 USA
Dear Vice-Chancellor,
I am writing to express my dismay on hearing of plans to close the Philosophy programmes at Middlesex. This is an area in which the university has achieved an international reputation for research and teaching that is the envy of many other institutions.
Last year when I was asked to cover for a member of the Middlesex English Department who was on sick leave I was deeply impressed not only by the high standard of teaching and pastoral care at Middlesex but by the internal cohesion of the School for Arts and Education. To lose such an innovative and successful part of your provision is surely short-sighted in the extreme and I very much hope that you will reconsider the decision.
Yours sincerely,
John Stokes
Emeritus Professor of Modern British Literature, King’s College London
Special Professor of English and Drama, University of Nottingham
29 April 2010
Dear Michael Driscoll, Waqar Ahmad, Margaret House and Ed Esche,
As both a friend and publisher of a number of writers who have either studied or taught philosophy at Middlesex, I was horrified to learn today that the department is under threat. I very much hope that the decision will be reversed: it would be disastrous and short-sighted for Middlesex University, damaging to higher education in the UK, and a terrible precedent for other universities and humanities departments. Verso Books will be supporting Middlesex faculty, staff and students as they fight this decision …
Sincerely,
Jacob Stevens
Verso Books
New York
Save Middlesex Philosophy 