Save Middlesex Philosophy

30 April 2010

To: Michael Driscoll; Waqar Ahmad; Margaret House; Ed Esche

Dear All,

As someone working in the field of philosohy and literature I feel it my duty to protest as strongly as possible about your decision to close this super department.

There cannnot be any academic justification for terminating so reputable, creative, visibly active and generally beneficial a centre of philosophical energy as this one. Many of its members are world-class researchers in the Continental philosophical tradition. To have their hub of intellectual productivity removed without intellectual cause will impoverish London and British academic life considerably. I’m not exaggerating.

I’m sure you must be under all sorts of pressures to be considering such an action, but I do appeal to you to reconsider and not to be remembered for for something which can only appear as a disastrous and calamatous mismanagement of priorities to any scholar of the humanities in Europe or the US.

Yours sincerely,

Paul Hamilton,
Professor of English,
Queen Mary University of London

29 April 2010

Dear Michael Driscoll, Waqar Ahmad, Margaret House, and Ed Esche,

I am writing to convey my disbelief at your decision to close the philosophy department at Middlesex. As a current member of the Society of Fellows at Harvard University, and a former Charlotte W. Newcombe Fellow at Cornell University, I have witnessed firsthand the extraordinary reputation and esteem that the philosophy department at Middlesex enjoys at research institutions in the United States.

At both Harvard and Cornell, Middlesex has come to figure as a university with stature, and as a prestigious institution for the pursuit of scholarship, thanks to the work and the influence of its philosophy department. To close this department would be to send an unequivocal signal to the academic community that Middlesex is not serious about research and the mission of higher education. For the sake of the reputation and the standing of your own university, I urge you to reconsider your decision.

Yours sincerely,
Martin Hägglund
Society of Fellows, Harvard University

3 May 2010

Dear Michael Driscoll, vice-chancellor of the university,
Waqar Ahmad, deputy vice-chancellor, research and enterprise, Margaret
House, deputy vice-chancellor, academic, and
Ed Esche, dean of the School of Arts & Education

The Department of Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths, University of London, wishes to add its voice to the national and international outcry at the University Executive’s planned closure of Philosophy at Middlesex. We feel this decision is shortsighted in the extreme and will impact directly and detrimentally on the reputation of the University and indeed on international research in continental philosophy and the wider humanities.

The work of those in the Centre for Europeran Philosophy at Middlsex plays a crucial role in disciplines beyond philosophy, including visual culture. Indeed, it would not be an exaggeration to say that the philosophers at Middlesex along with its wider graduate community, constitutes the most dynamic and important group working in the field today.

We ask that the University executive reverse this decision and turn back from what can only be seen as an attack on the very idea of what a University stands for.

Yours sincerely

Dr Jorella Andrews – Head of Department
Dr Gavin Butt
Professor Alexander Duttman
Kodwo Eshun
Andy Lowe
Dr Jean-Paul Martinon
Dr Simon O’Sullivan
Brendan Prendeville
Professor Irit Rogoff
Astrid Schmetterling
Dr Derval Tubridy
Dr Lynn Turner
Dr Eyal Weizman
Dr Nicole Wolf

Statement from Goldsmiths Sociology on the closure of philosophy at Middlesex

2 May 2010

To: Michael Driscoll, Vice-Chancellor, Middlesex University

We are academics in the Department of Sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London who are horrified by the decision to close Philosophy programmes at Middlesex. As you well know, Philosophy is the highest research-rated subject at your University, with 65% of its research activity judged ‘world-leading’ or ‘internationally excellent’ in the last RAE. The Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy is, as your own website rightly points out, ‘the leading centre for postgraduate level study and doctoral research in Continental Philosophy in the London area’ and has a deserved international reputation.

We understand that the decision to close the programmes was made not because they are in deficit but because of a strategic decision to focus on higher-band programmes. We also understand that the Dean of the School of Arts and Humanities acknowledged the excellent research reputation of Philosophy at Middlesex, but said that it made no ‘measurable’ contribution to the University.

We deplore such a statement and urge you to reconsider your decision to pursue what we believe can only be described as a clear case of academic vandalism.

Prof. Les Back
Prof. Vikki Bell
Dr. Kirsten Campbell
Dr. Mariam Fraser
Dr. Monica Greco
Dr. Yasmin Gunaratnam
Dr. Aidan Kelly
Prof. Caroline Knowles
Prof. Celia Lury
Prof. Mike Michael
Prof. Kate Nash
Dr. David Oswell
Dr. Nirmal Puwar
Dr. Marsha Rosengarten
Prof. Bev Skeggs
Dr. Alberto Toscano

2 May 2010 at 15:57
From: 22 members of academic staff in the Department of Media and Communications, Goldsmiths, University of London
To: Michael Driscoll

We are academics in the Department of Media and Communications at Goldsmiths, University of London who are horrified by the decision to close Philosophy programmes at Middlesex. As you well know, Philosophy is the highest research-rated subject at your University, with 65% of its research activity judged ‘world-leading’ or ‘internationally excellent’ in the last RAE. The Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy is, as your own website rightly points out, ‘the leading centre for postgraduate level study and doctoral research in Continental Philosophy in the London area’ and has a deserved international reputation.

We understand that the decision to close the programmes was made not because they are in deficit but because of a strategic decision to focus on higher-band programmes. We also understand that the Dean of the School of Arts and Humanities acknowledged the excellent research reputation of Philosophy at Middlesex, but said that it made no ‘measurable’ contribution to the University.

We deplore such a statement and urge you to reconsider your decision to pursue what we believe can only be described as a clear case of academic vandalism.

Professor Sara Ahmed
Professor Chris Berry
Dr Lisa Blackman
Professor Nick Couldry
Tim Crook
Professor James Curran
Dr Kay Dickinson
Dr Tony Dowmunt
Professor Natalie Fenton
Dr Des Freedman
Dr Janet Harbord
Dr Julian Henriques
Dr Sarah Kember
Peter Lee-Wright
Professor Angela McRobbie
Dr Liz Moor
Dr Rachel Moore
Angela Phillips
Dr Richard Smith
Dr Gareth Stanton
Dr Pasi Valiaho
Dr Joanna Zylinska

29 April 2010

A number of weeks ago, I gave a talk at the regular CRMEP seminar that Peter Osborne has nurtured at Middlesex for as long as I can remember. The room in the Mansion Building was packed – not just with postgraduates and staff but with undergraduates, even from the first year, and people from outside the university. This was nothing to do with me (I wish), but says everything about the fantastic set of programmes and passionate culture for researching, debate and thought that our colleagues in philosophy have built up over the years. I wonder how many other departments run postgraduate research seminars that first year students attend.

I am stunned and ashamed that the university I work for has made this short-sighted, expedient, and ill-informed decision. I have read the explanation from the Dean. I didn’t follow the rationale. I understand that part of the university’s strategy for coping with the downturn is to expand postgraduate numbers – on which HEFC funding does not bear. If there is a single department in the School likely to be able to do this, it is philosophy.

I am perplexed at how this decision reflects the University’s approach to cultivating research. I would welcome publication of the minutes of the meeting where the decision was taken to close the department, so that staff can make informed judgements about what is after all being done in our name.

Regards

Andy Goffey
Senior Lecturer in Media, Culture and Communications
Middlesex University

30 April 2010

Dear colleagues

I am writing to you today – as have, I know, many others already – to express my personal shock and my professional dismay at the news of the planned closure of philosophy programmes at Middlesex.

It is no exaggeration to say that to my mind the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy is one of the most important research centres in the British humanities. I have sent more than one of my own best students to study there over the years, and I have frankly lost count of the number of times that I have recommended its MA and PhD programmes to students (both home and overseas) who have contacted me for advice, including several potentially strong applicants to my own programmes. In the current competitive marketplace one does not make such gestures lightly, but it is a testament to my own professional judgement as to the quality and scope of those programmes and the individuals who teach them, and to the widely-held opinion of them shared by the broader academic community of which I am a member, that I have had no hesitation in doing so.

I am based in a research centre which, much like CRMEP, has been rated very highly at every Research Assessment Exercise (80% world-leading or internationally-ecxcellent in 2008) despite facing the challenges of being based at a new university in London. As such I can well understand the difficulties facing such institutions and the financial pressures driving the decision to close programmes. However, I also know that it is both possible and essential that new universities continue to promote such centres of excellence under current political circumstances. There can be little question as to the very strong desire of influential lobbies within the HE sector to put an end to all research funding for all but elite institutions, and there can be no question that if this desire is realised, it will prove of no benefit at all to any part or member of any post-1992 institution. As such, a threat to an acknowledged centre of world-leading excellence in a new university must be seen as suicidally complicit with the elitist agenda which threatens the very status of both our institutions.

This is surely a catastrophic strategic mistake. I repeat: it is quite clear that our ‘colleagues’ in the Russell Group, and many of their friends in government, would dearly love to see centres of excellence such as CRMEP excised from the sector altogether, in order to justify their medium-term aim of reducing our overall funding levels and excluding us from all research funding; and it is quite clear that it cannot be in our interests to allow this to happen. Given that the popularity and profitability of its programmes are well-known, one can only assume that CRMEP is likely to be offered a home by another institution if Middlesex insists on closing it; but it would be a devastating blow to the non-elite part of the sector were the centre (as seems likely) to join an elite institution.

As the editor of a leading peer-reviewed journal in the critical humanities (new formations), I can attest with some authority as to the very high quality of the research which is produced by the centre and its staff, but also to the significant contribution made by its work to the life of the wider intellectual community. The events and publications produced by the centre, as well as by the journal which is most closely associated with it (Radical Philosophy), form a focal point for theoretical and speculative debate in the English-speaking world, across a range of disciplines. I can personally say without exaggeration that my own published work has been significantly influenced, enhanced and enriched by them, while my awareness of and level of engagement with significant areas of cutting-edge research would be far poorer had it not been for their extraordinary contribution. There is no other equivalent research centre or publication about which I would make this claim in such unqualified terms.

As we all know, there is increasing pressure on British universities to demonstrate the widespread dissemination and influence of their work. It is worth noting, then, what happened when the most recent issue of new formations carried a publication co-authored in part by two members of CRMEP (Éric Alliez and Peter Hallward), produced entirely with their co-operation (the round-table discussion upon which it was based being recorded in a room made available by CRMEP). The publishers of the journal, Lawrence & Wishart, decided to make the a pdf version of the resulting article available for download for free from its website. With minimal publicity, this publication was downloaded over 6,000 times within less than a week of its release date. I would challenge anyone to show that any other group of researchers and teachers working in the British humanities is capable of this level of demonstrable influence and impact. The curbing of their activities could only be a catastrophe for Middlesex, for the cause of the new universities, and, most importantly, for the wider community of researchers, students and public which it remains our duty to serve.

Yours sincerely

Jeremy Gilbert
Reader in Cultural Studies
School of Humanities & Cultural Studies
University of East London
4-6 University Way
London
E16 2RD
J.Gilbert@uel.ac.uk
http://www.uel.ac.uk:80/hss/staff/jeremy-gilbert/

30 April 2010

Dear Professor Driscoll, Professor Ahmad, Professor House, and Professor Esche,

I wish to add my voice to the wholly justified discontent about the proposed closure of the philosophy department at Middlesex University. It is one of the very few philosophy departments in the UK which seriously engage with Continental philosophy, and the consequences of removing such a well-renowned centre for the study of European philosophy will be extremely serious for intellectual life in this country. Since the issues and theories with which Continental Philosophy engages are so important for students and academics in the humanities in general, you can expect the sense of outrage that has already been expressed to intensify over the coming months. Many have benefited from the work going on at Middlesex directly (by being students there, as many of my most gifted friends were), but many more have benefited indirectly from the numerous conferences that the department has organised and the publications it has overseen.

The decision comes at a moment when the terrible consequences of allowing narrowly defined business interests and ‘the market’ to dominate all aspects of culture are becoming increasingly clear. The time when closures like this would be meekly accepted is over. If this decision is not reversed, expect a long and bitter struggle.

Yours sincerely

Dr Mark Fisher
Tutor in Philosophy at the City Literary Institute, London
Visiting Fellow, the Centre for Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths, University of London

30 April 2010

Dear Professor Driscoll,

It is as founding Director of the Social Theory Centre at the University of Warwick that I wish to express my concern about the closure of the Philosophy programmes at Middlesex. Philosophy at Middlesex has a well deserved international reputation for its research excellence and is one of the most important centres for the study of modern European philosophy in the English-speaking world. Middlesex has played a leading role in the study of social and political thought and its closure would, if it goes ahead, be a nail in the coffin of a vibrant and important research area in British universities. I do not know the economic rationale for the closure decision but in intellectual terms, and in terms of making British universities genuinely ‘world-class’, this seems to me a destructive move. I hope it can be reconsidered and repealed. I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely,

Professor Robert Fine
Department of Sociology
University of Warwick
Coventry CV47AL
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/sociology/staff/academicstaff/robertfine/home/

30 April 2010

Dear Mr. Driscoll,

It was with disbelief that I read about the closure of the Philosophy programme at Middlesex. Philosophy at Middlesex has achieved some remarkable things, not least of which was to loosen the stranglehold of Oxford philosophy on intellectual  life by establishing a base for European thought in the UK.   Philosophy at Middlesex further developed a graduate school with high quality graduands who could make an impression in the area of publication and debate.

Whilst it may be the case that other subjects, business studies, for example,  can make more money for the University this has never been the sole criterion of academic worth or viability. Life in the UK depends also on the ability to advance intellectual freedom, to debate, reason about the conditions of life we find ourselves in and to think clearly about the kinds of future world that are desirable. From your decision it looks as though  where Hitler and Stalin failed to destroy freedom of thought, the freedom to think in a clear and reflexive way as a form of cultural flourishing, the accountants might make a better job of it.

This is a decision you will have to live with.

Dr. Howard Feather,
Sociology,
London Metrolitan University