Save Middlesex Philosophy

From: Tom <thomaseyers@googlemail.com>
Date: 28 April 2010 22:44:47 GMT+01:00
To: “M.Driscoll@mdx.ac.uk” <M.Driscoll@mdx.ac.uk>
Subject: Closure of philosophy
Dear Professor Driscoll

I was shocked and upset to hear that the University plans to close its philosophy programs. I’m a PhD student in philosophy at Middlesex, and I have been struck by the dynamism and quality of r esearch that the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy produces, and the sense of inclusivity the Centre offers to its students. These reflections are amply borne out by the RAE scores the Centre has received, truly exceptional for a small department at a ‘new’ university.

I came to Middlesex having completed my first two degrees at Cambridge University. I had long been aware of the reputation of a number of the philosophy research staff at Middlesex and I felt the particular focus of the Centre, with its uniquely interdisciplinary concern for European thought, would provide a more conducive atmosphere for my research than Cambridge ever could. I was right. Peter Hallward has been the very model of a supervisor, rigorous and supportive in equal measure, and Peter Osborne’s unstinting, intellectually generous support for the Centre’s interdisciplinary project has been inspiring to witness.

Having been lucky enough to receive a fully funded research studentship from the department, I have also had the benefit of teaching on the undergraduate programs. There I have encountered students thirsty for knowledge and with an admirable skepticism for received opinion. The undergraduate philosophy course, so brilliantly managed by Stella Sandford and Mark Kelly, has deservedly been considered the jewel in the crown of undergrad programs at Middlesex, requiring of it’s students a tenacity and breadth of thought rare in British universities, including, I should add, at my deified almer mata.

It seems quite extraordinary, then, that the University should choose to so wantonly harm its reputation by destroying this department, with it’s researchers of international renown, and it’s active and talented students, both undergraduate and postgraduate. I implore you to reconsider.

Yours sincerely
Tom Eyers
Research student in Philosophy, Middlesex University.

29 April 2010

Dear Vice Chancellor and Deputy Vice Chancellors

I wrote to Professor Esche yesterday, and also wanted to let you know that I am staggered by the news that you are planning to close the philosophy programmes at Middlesex. I was trained in political theory and philosophy before moving into geography, and Middlesex is one of the strongest philosophy departments in the country in the areas I worked in. Many of the best philosophers in the UK are employed in the deparment, and several across the world have studied there, spoken there or otherwise benefitted from its research excellence.

I can see no basis for this decision – it’s a successful department, providing high quality education and delivering excellence in research.

I strongly urge you to reconsider.

Yours sincerely

Stuart Elden

Professor Stuart Elden
Geography Department, Durham University
Editor, Society and Space (Environment and Planning D)

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

28 April 2010

Dear Professor Driscoll, dear Dr. Ahmad, dear Professor House, dear Professor Esche,

I am writing to you to express grave concern about the decision to close down the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy at Middlesex University. Over the years, this internationally admired Centre has developed into a place of academic excellence, one of the very few in the United Kingdom where the European tradition of Philosophy is taught, and one of the even fewer where it is taught to the very highest standards.

I must appeal to you to reconsider your decision, as I feel that the closure of the Centre would be highly damaging not only to Middlesex itself but also to the reputation of Britain’s university system and even, more generally, to its entire cultural life.

Yours sincerely,

Alex Garcia Düttmann
Professor of Philosophy and Visual Culture
Goldsmiths, University of London

—–Original Message—–
From: david.durling@me.com
Sent: Sat 01/05/2010 12:21
To: Ed Esche
Cc: Margaret House; Michael Driscoll; Waqar Ahmad
Subject: Closure of Philosophy at MDX

Dear Ed Esche,

I have been following this week’s announcement about the closure of Philosophy at MDX and its very public aftermath with increasing dismay, both for the individuals concerned and the reputation of the university.

In my time at MDX, working with colleagues to raise the standard of research across art and design, the achievements of the philosophy centre were a beacon to us all. They showed us just what could be achieved in a new university and in a subject where there is very strong competition from the traditional universities. I have always had the deepest admiration for CRMEP and their influence: in the school, in the university, nationally and internationally.

You simply cannot dismiss them in isolation. Perhaps I should remind you what we said in the Art and Design submission to RAE in 2008:

“ADRI is part of, and contributes to, an intellectually stimulating atmosphere within the School of Arts and Education, with adjacent RAE grade 5 units: Visual Culture; Modern European Philosophy…”

Philosophy is the touchstone of that intellectual environment. We felt their presence in the various strategic discussions leading to RAE, in the exemplary submission that they made, and in its extraordinary success.

I know that many others, both within and outwith the university, have written to you about this worst kind of managerial barbarism. Surely you must see that this decision casts a very dark shadow over other departments’ attempts to establish a strong research ethos at MDX, and has sent a shockwave through the intellectual communities of this country and overseas? The growing online petition alone is adequate testimony to the respect shown to this group of scholars, and the determination that closure should not be allowed to happen.

I rarely feel a need to write letters like this, but I judge this to be such a crass decision. I cannot understand how a university which holds such a gem could cast it out on the basis of making no ‘measurable’ contribution. No measurable contribution? The contribution is intellectual, is about ideas. Your spreadsheets cannot measure that.

It is the hope of – now several thousands of us – that this decision can be reconsidered and rescinded. There must be a better way forward than to wreck a world class act.

Regards,

David Durling

Professor David Durling FDRS PhD MDesRCA BA,
Associate Dean for Research,
Birmingham Institute for Art and Design, UK.
(Previously Professor of Design, in the School of Arts & Education, Middlesex University).

29 April 2010

Dear Sirs

I believe your decision to close the Department of Philosophy at your University to be amongst the most ill-conceived gestures to have been undertaken by an institute of higher education in the UK since the straitened times of the 1980s.

I have collaborated in the past with friends and colleagues in Philosophy at Middlesex. I speak therefore as someone with both an insider’s knowledge of the Department, and as a respected member of the academic community.

Philosophy at Middlesex is a beacon of achievement, a remarkable testament to what can be achieved through the commitment of staff and management. It punches way above its weight in the international discipline of philosophy. It has a justly famous reputation both for the quality of its research and for its teaching. In REF terms, it has both quality of output, and significant impact, far beyond the reach of most philosophy departments in the UK.

More than this, however, for many people, Philosophy is the face of Middlesex University, the first, and best, thing that academics think about, when they think about Middlesex.

The damage you will do to the reputation and standing of your institution will be both severe, and possibly irreparable, if you choose to go through with this evidently poorly thought through action.

I trust that you will take the opportunity of the significant opposition to this move being expressed throughout the academic establishment, and well beyond that establishment as well, to reconsider this proposal.

Yours faithfully

Dr Robin Durie
Senior Lecturer in Politics, University of Exeter
Senior Research Fellow, Peninsula Medical School

3 May 2010

Dear Dean,

I am writing this e-mail after having heard the stunning news of the projected closure of Philosophy programs at Middlesex University. I urge you to reconsider such a decision.

The Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy at Middlesex is one of the few philosophy departments where contemporary European thought is studied in a sustained way. Its recent accomplishments – such as the widely renowned electronic edition of the “Cahiers pour l’analyse” – has made it a landmark in philosophical studies at an international level.

I have no idea of the motives behind such a decision ; I can just assure you that it would not only be a loss for specialists and scholars in European thought, but also a stain on the reputation of Middlesex University.

And it would contradict the recent dynamics which made of Middlesex first a university and then an internationally recognized institution at the post-graduate level.

Hoping that such a message as well as the large international protest elicited by this projected closure will be able to make you reconsider your decision,

Sincerely yours,

Prof. Vincent Debaene
Department of French and Romance Philology
Columbia University in New York
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/french/

From: Nicholas Davey
Sent: Thu 29/04/2010 12:25
To: Michael Driscoll
Cc: Ed Esche; Margaret House; Waqar Ahmad
Subject: Closure of Philosophy at Middlesex University

Dear Vice-Chancellor

It will be presumptuous of me to assume anything about the economic circumstances within your University which may have contributed to the decision to close all Philosophy programmes at Middlesex University. You will know that we too are not immune from having to make some painful decisions with regard to future provision. However, I must state my dismay at hearing the news of the proposed closure for various reasons.

1.  As a member of the Philosophy RAE panel, I am fully aware of the considerable esteem and respect in which the Philosophy unit at Middlesex  University is held. It achieved a sustained performance of very high level over two RAE cycles and has been recognised across Europe as one of the most influential Continental Philosophy departments in Northern Europe.

2. For four years I had the honour to serve that department as an external examiner and became closely involved with aspects of both its undergraduate but primarily, post graduate programmes. The postgraduate course on Aesthetics and Arts was one of the best in the UK and it is a great shame to have to contemplate the now useless efforts that went into building that programme.

3. The department has housed the journal ‘Radical Philosophy’ which although not mainstream in opinion or outlook, is respected for its thoroughness and substantial contribution to philosophical  and wider cultural debates in UK.

The loss of Philosophy department at Middlesex University will involve you in jettisoning what many would regard a prize asset. Its worth is such that your decision might merit some reconsideration.

Yours sincerely,

Nicholas

Prof. Nicholas Davey, M.A. D.Phil.
Dean of Humanities.
University of Dundee,
Nethergate,
Dundee DD1 4HN
GB Scotland

Date : 28 avril 2010 20:46:04 HAEC

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

Dear Sirs and Madam,

Having learned of the impending decision to close the philosophy programs and department at Middlesex University, I can only stress the unique role played by the said programs and department to foster the international reputation of your institution of higher education. I recently participated as a guest speaker in a symposium organized in London by the Center for Research in Modern European Philosophy, and prior to that I had often heard pf and read publications and praises of the philosophical activities at Middlesex, and I can only express my dismay at this unjustifiable decision: it seems, not only to scholars in philosophy but to all decision-makers in the academia, that “financial” reasons should never go against the long-term impact and positioning of a given department in an increasingly competitive and globalized academic scene in the humanities and social sciences. That publications and scholars from Middlesex be quoted in the highest-ranked international arenas in philosophy and literature, that the level of scholarship and pedagogical accomplishment reached at Middlesex outbid those at most Ivy-League universities in the US and at the best similar programs in Continental Europe, that a good number of the world’s most influential thinkers — including in matters of international relations and non-governmental politics — be either cooperating with this department or fully supportive of its activities, all of this altogether demonstrates that the department and Center in question are much less an unprofitable institution, or a nostalgic remnant of the “good old days” when philosophy was an academic priority, than they are, simply, an invaluable asset for both Middlesex University and the larger UK academic system, to the extent that the latter remains interested in being truly influential and playing some role in the globalized academic and scientific scenes.

In view of the above, I along with many academics and reknown intellectuals in both Continental Europe and North America can only express our amazement at such an ill-fitted and strategically wrong decision.

Sincerely,

François Cusset
Professor at University of Western Paris
Director of Master’s Programs in English

From: Curtis Neal
Sent: 29 April 2010 09:39

Dear Profs. Driscoll, Ahmad, House and Esche

I am writing to you on hearing the frankly unbelievable news that you are closing Philosophy at Middlesex. Of course,  I recognise that I do not have the facts and figures to hand that led to this decision, but it is staggering, and quite alarming, that even a world-class department is not free from the threat of closure.

From the outside the decision seems incomprehensible given the high profile of the people working in the department and their international standing. I would have assumed that Middlesex would be incredibly proud of what the Philosophy department has done to put the name of Middlesex University at the heart of debates not only in philosophy, but across the Humanities.

At a time when philosophy and critical thinking appear to be on the rise on the schools curriculum I can only hope this isn’t an extreme form of short-termism that the University will ultimately regret.

This is troubling for all of us.

Yours faithfully

Neal Curtis
Director of the Centre for Critical Theory
Department of Cultural Studies
Room B39a, Trent Building
University of Nottingham
University Park
Nottingham NG7 2RD