Save Middlesex Philosophy

m.driscoll@mdx.ac.uk,
w.ahmad@mdx.ac.uk,
m.house@mdx.ac.uk,
e.esche@mdx.ac.uk

dateWed, Apr 28, 2010

Dear all,

I am writing to express my shock and strong disapproval of the recent decision to close all philosophy programmes at Middlesex University.  Shutting down a department that boasts the university’s highest RAE ratings, the nation’s largest MA programmes, outstanding and internationally praised members of faculty, some of the brightest and most promising students, and financial viability is simply incomprehensible.  Whose interests does this serve?  It was particularly the strength and uniqueness of the MA programme and the indisputably well-deserved reputation of the faculty that brought me to Middlesex from the United States five years ago.  I was so pleased with the philosophy department, and so honoured to be a part of philosophy at Middlesex, that I decided to continue my work there as a PhD student.  During and after all this time I can say without any hesitation that there is nowhere else in the world at which I would have rather studied.  I cannot imagine how much my life and work would have suffered in comparison if I never had the honour and pleasure of working with Middlesex’s philosophy faculty and participating in the degree programmes.  In short, being a part of philosophy at Middlesex is an internationally recognized point of pride, and this bizarre decision is taking that away from faculty, students, and yourselves.  So please reverse this while there’s still time and free yourselves from the responsibility for ending one of the intellectual world’s (and of course Middlesex’s) greatest treasures.

Sincerely,

Dustin McWherter
PhD Candidate in Philosophy

29 April 2010

Middlesex University is sleep-walking into a global public relations disaster by the announcement of the imminent closure of Philosophy. The world-wide condemnation of this boneheaded decision, which is surely gathering force, can only be avoided by a volte-face which, judging by the low level of decision making exhibited thus far, seems unlikely. The blind pursuit of the bean counters holy grail of 2% is regrettably entirely understandable in an institution that clearly has no morality, holds nothing dear and is merely beholden to a crass accountancy that is blindly indifferent to wider values.

By proposing to close the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy, Middlesex University has transformed itself, as if by magic, into a world centre for excellence in the worship of the bottom line. This short-termism leaves Middlesex University standing proud as a beacon of incompetence, indifference, and the second rate. Henceforth Middlesex will have an international reputation as an educational institution unfit to call itself a university.

Alan McPherson
PhD in Philosophy,
Middlesex University, 2009.

3 May 2010

To the administration of Middlesex University:

I’m writing to join the chorus of voices protesting the closure of Middlesex Philosophy.

I write in my capacity as Director of Graduate Studies at Cornell University, one of the top research universities in the United States, where I have had ample opportunity in my work with graduate students across the humanities to appreciate firsthand the tremendous and growing impact of Middlesex Philosophy faculty on the most cutting edge current research in philosophy, critical theory, and political thought.  Under the extraordinary stewardship of Professor Peter Osborne, the Philosophy department has over the past ten years assembled a veritible “dream team” of scholars working in the most dynamic and vital areas of contemporary philosophy, whose work has achieved a degree of dissemination and international recognition that has not been seen since the heyday of French philosophy in the 1960’s and early 1970’s.

The administration’s conclusion that the Philosophy department makes “no measurable contribution” to Middlesex University is patently ridiculous. The department received top scores in recent evaluations, with 65% of faculty research justifiably appraised as “world leading.”  It currently supports more than 60 graduate students in its wide range of MA and doctoral programs, a figure that few Philosophy departments anywhere in the world would be able to match.  By comparison, the Sage School of Philosophy at Cornell University, which is currently the top-ranked program in the United States, enrolls only 20 students at the graduate level and has no faculty members who have anything like the international reputation of the senior philosophy faculty at Middlesex.

The contribution of Middlesex Philosophy has been measured again and again, but is also in a strict sense immeasurable.  Numbers can’t quantify the impact of thought and teaching.  The thousands of letter writers and petition signatories whose names are now reaching your desks are proof of that impact, which extends from current and former Middlesex students to the international philosophy community to people everywhere in the world who are trying to make sense of problems that go well beyond the traditional scope of philosophy—notably in the political sphere—that your faculty are helping us to understand in works of startling originality and insight.

My university has long been interested in hiring senior faculty in your Philosophy department, and will no doubt be glad to have an opportunity to do so if you proceed with your wreckless decision to dismantle this department.  No philosophy program, however, could duplicate what you already have.  Middlesex Philosophy is much more than the sum of its very distinguished parts.  Its faculty and students are fiercely dedicated not only to one another and to the absolutely unique intellectual environment they have managed to create and foster, but to the communities in which they live.  The current reputation of London as an international intellectual center owes a great deal to Middlesex Philosophy, whose frequent colloquia and collaborative research projects and active public participation in the intellectual life of the city and the United Kingdom as a whole have created something truly unique.  Not the least of its contributions is having put on the map a former polytechnic whose non-traditional students were never expected to accomplish much of anything, and who in a very short time have completely transformed the face of contemporary philosophy.

Tracy McNulty
Director of Graduate Studies
Professor of Romance Studies and Comparative Literature
Cornell University

Sent: Thu 29/04/2010 02:33
To: Michael Driscoll; Waqar Ahmad; Margaret House; Ed Esche
Cc:
Subject: Closure of the Philosophy Program

Dear Vice-Chancellors Driscoll, Ahmad, and House, and Dean Esche,

Over the next several days, you will undoubtedly hear much about the value of Middlesex’s program in philosophy:  the stature of the program, the students it attracts, the standing of its faculty.  I would like to address a more personal note, since I had the opportunity to speak at Middlesex two years ago.

I was invited to address the work of the contemporary French philosopher Jacques Ranciere, about whom I have recently published a second book. Since there are not yet many people with great expertise in Ranciere’s thought, I generally expect that my talks will be greeted with some curiosity and with questions of clarification.

This is not what happened at Middlesex.  My talk, which was attended by nearly fifty people (far more than I was used to for a talk on Ranciere), was followed by the most probing questions I have encountered.  The atmosphere was intense throughout.  It was, unlike many talks I have given and attended, as though a deep desire had infiltrated the room, a desire to know whether the ideas of this thinker were indeed right and apt.  I do not recall having been, before or since, in a room where so much seemed at stake in the discussion before us.  It was indeed philosophy as I had dreamed it would be when I was an undergraduate, just beginning to be seduced by its wiles.

This is not all.  After the discussion, nearly two dozen students followed us to a restaurant, where discussion continued for two more hours.

A program like this is a rare gem.  Many philosophy programs, here in the US and elsewhere, have become enclaves of remote specialization.  Not so at Middlesex.  By whatever magic they have conjured, the faculty at that program have created a haven for inquiry as it was always meant to be–serious, engaged, passionate.

With this in mind, I ask you, as one (admittedly, only one) academic to another, to re-consider the decision to close the philosophy program.  It saddens me to know that such a program is in peril.  Those whose intellectual lives it has touched will be impoverished by its loss.  These are difficult economic times, I understand.  But I urge you to do what you can to keep the philosophy program from succumbing to these times.

Respectfully,
Todd May

Todd May
Class of 1941 Memorial Professor of the Humanities
Clemson University

29 April 2010

This decision would be a shameful act of vandalism and must be resisted. Were it to stand, it would irreparably damage the University’s reputation, with immediate and far-reaching consequences for its capacity to succeed by any measure. The ethos and principles according to which it has been made are fundamentally alien to what motivates the people who study and teach here. The justification offered is pathetically ignorant of this. Who wants to work and study in a University governed by such decisions? The deep shock expressed inside and outside the University is testimony to the magnitude of the mistake being proposed. I join with the calls already made for all to do whatever they can to save Middlesex from itself.

Stewart Martin

Senior Lecturer in Modern European Philosophy, Aesthetics and Art Theory
Middlesex University

From: William Marshall
Sent: 02 May 2010 16:25
To: m.driscoll@mdx.ac.uk; w.ahmad@mdx.ac.uk; m.house@mdx.ac.uk; e.esche@mdx.ac.uk
Subject: Closure of Philosophy at Middlesex

Dear Colleagues

I am writing to express my deep dismay and disappointment at the news that Middlesex University intends to close down its programmes in Philosophy. The Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy is world renowned for the quality and relevance of its work, and its number of graduate students is looked on with admiration and envy by Humanities departments up and down the UK. What is even more disturbing is the denial of the availability of such courses in a post-1992 institution with an admirably diverse social intake, with the risk that Philosophy as a discipline will become confined to ever more elite sectors. The fact that a logic of economic expediency and an exclusively corporate approach to running a University results in what amounts to a curtailing of academic freedom and even political censorship is particularly outrageous.

The lasting damage that this decision is inflicting on the national and international reputation of Middlesex University is enormous. I urge you to reconsider and to reverse the path you have taken.

Yours sincerely

Bill Marshall
Professor of Comparative Literary and Cultural Studies
University of Stirling
Stirling FK9 4LA
Scotland, UK.

29 April 2010

Dear Colleagues

I’m writing to urge you to reconsider the decision, of which I have just learned, to close all Philosophy programmes at Middlesex. Even in these difficult and dismaying times, I must say I was genuinely astonished to hear of this decision. The stature of Philosophy at Middlesex is exceptionally high, many of its staff being researchers and scholars of the first rank internationally. In my own work, for example, the research of Professors Hallward and Osborne is an absolute reference-point, and I know that other Middlesex philosophers enjoy a similar reputation in their fields. Anecdotally, just a few weeks ago, I wrote a reference recommending a postgraduate student for the MA in Philosophy and Contemporary Critical Theory at Middlesex – he had embarked on Master’s study here but (rightly, I think) felt that the course was not quite geared towards his philosophical interests, and I was confident he was applying to one of the very best Departments in the UK for the kind of cutting-edge philosophical training he was seeking. The work of your Philosophy Department brings nothing but credit to Middlesex University (not to mention income, I’d have thought, given their success in the RAE and in PG recruitment). Please reconsider.

Sincerely

Ian Maclachlan
Fellow and Tutor in French
Merton College
Oxford OX1 4JD
01865 276322

30 April 2010

Sirs, Madam

I write in protest against the decision you have recently made to close down Middlesex’s philosophy department. It beggars belief that anyone would wish to terminate one of the most prestigious centers for the study of Continental philosophy in the UK. Your Philosophy department has played an immense role in anchoring Middlesex university’s growing reputation for research and postgraduate teaching excellence. In what appears to be a short-sighted and abrupt decision, you run the risk of depriving yourself of the jewel of your own crown. I would respectfully urge to reconsider this ill-thought-through decision, which can only have a damaging impact both on the standing of UK Philosophy and on Middlesex itself.

Sincerely

Cecile Laborde
Professor of Political Theory
Director, Legal and Political Theory Programme
Department of Political Science
University College London
29/30 Tavistock Square
London WC1H 9QU

1 May 2010

Sirs,

Though you may have not be interested at all in how outside your borders your doings may look like, I would like to assure you that closing the Philosophy Programmes at the Middlesex University is scandalous, stupefying, and outraging.

I deeply hope, Sirs, you do not think this is an act of far-sightness.

On behalf of all Bulgarian publishers of human & social sciences :

A. Koleva

Antoinette Koleva
Director
KX – Critique & Humanism Publishing House
11, Slaveykov Square
Sofia 1000
Bulgaria
kx@bsph.org
http://www.bsph.org/kx
ph./fax (++359 2) 98 00 243
mob. (++359) 898 566 238
A member & founder of the BULGARIAN SOCIETY OF PUBLISHERS IN HUMANITIES

Sent: Thu 29/04/2010 22:04
To: Michael Driscoll; Waqar Ahmad; Margaret House; Ed Esche
Subject: Termination of Philosophy at Middlesex University

Dear Vice-Chancellor Driscoll, Deputy Vice-Chancellor Ahmad, Deputy Vice Chancellor House, and Dean Esche,

It was with shock and dismay that I learned this morning of your decision to terminate Philosophy programmes at Middlesex University and to shut down your Center for Research in Modern European Philosophy. Philosophy at Middlesex is a known high achiever in the UK and European philosophy fields; scholars such as Peter Hallward are among the most highly respected philosophers, teachers of philosophy, and contributors to humanist and political debates globally. Quite inconceivably, it appears that in addition to this renown, the programmes and Center being dismantled had a strong record in terms of enrollment and other indices of economic sustainability. What could be the rationale for destroying wholesale a prominent and healthy program in one of the world’s classic educational disciplines?

Philosophy has been a hallmark of Western civilization since the earliest times; and one of its preoccupations as a discipline and a literary corpus has always been resistance to taking philosophy seriously as a prerequisite for reasoned and seasoned citizenship and governance. Socrates complained of the place of philosophy in the culture of his time: “They imagine that philosophy ought to be made a mere secondary occupation.” His young listener queries “And what is the right plan?” “Just the opposite,” responds Socrates. “In youth and boyhood they ought to be put through a course of training in philosophy suited to their years; and while their bodies are growing up to manhood, especial attention should be paid to them. At the approach of that period in which the mind begins to attain its maturity, the mental exercises ought to be rendered more severe. Finally, when their bodily powers begin to fail, and they are released from public duties […], from that time forward they ought to lead a dedicated life.” Socrates goes on to argue that “unless political power and philosophy are united in the same person, […] there will be no deliverance, my dear Glaucon, for cities, nor yet, I believe, for the human race; neither can the commonwealth, which we have now sketched in theory, ever till then grow into a possibility, and see the light of day.”

If UK higher education moves to dismantle philosophy programmes and centers piecemeal, it will in an important sense cut its ties with its own past, and isolate itself from the fundamental dialogues of critical thought that protect the lives of nations and coalitions from the exercise of political power without philosophy.

If it proceeds with its plan of “terminating philosophy,” Middlesex will send a strong message to students that their education is utilitarian rather than a means of preparing themselves for a lifetime of productive reflection and engagement. The blow to the reputation of Middlesex University is incalculable. Educators and students around the world are sadly assessing this as a symptom of weakness in the long term commitment of UK higher education to equal access to training in nothing less fundamental than thinking itself.

Sincerely,

Deborah Jenson
Professor of French Studies
205 Languages, Box 90257
Duke University
Durham, NC 27708