Depressing things going on at Middlesex University in the UK following management's crazy decision to close the Philosophy Department.
After student occupations in protest, a number of students and faculty have been suspended from the University. Faculty suspended are Professor Peter Osbourne, Professor Peter Hallward, and Dr. Christian Kerslake.
Many readers will know the department and its excellent and ongoing work. Philosophy has been one of the University's highest research-rated departments. It seems its just not profitable or 'impactful' enough for management's vision of the University going forward. Unfortunately, this seems an increasing threat to the humanities, arts and some of the critical social sciences in an increasingly neo-liberalizing British higher educational context.
More here and a petition as well:
http://savemdxphil.com/2010/05/25/more-information-about-the-philosophy-suspensions/
Philosophy Department closure at Middlesex University, UK
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Depressing news indeed, Tariq. Has there been much discussion in the UK of the status of Middlesex philosophy as a bastion of specifically continental theory, in terms of a possible politics as well as the economics behind targeting the department for closure? Or the ostensibly non-political language of profitability taken more or less at face value?
Just as in the University of California system, what is at stake here, in addition to the university system itself, is the right to protest. Students and faculty members at Middlesex have been arrested simply for non-violent expression of their opposition to cuts.