the boycott petition link, again

Everyone needs to make their own decision on such matters, but I would strongly urge SIGNING THE PETITION for a boycott of Middlesex. There are now 377 signatures, some of them quite prominent.

There are a number of reasons why one should not wish to have anything further to do with this institution if it continues on its present course. Let’s recall some of them here.

*Universities must indeed sometimes close down departments and programs. There’s no avoiding that fact. What is perhaps unprecedented in this case is that Middlesex is closing down its best department, and without even valid financial reasons for doing so.

*Middlesex Philosophy’s excellent performance in the RAE earns the university a great deal of money for the next few years. And Middlesex will be able to use that money even following the dissolution of their Philosophy programs. Apparently this is legal, but anyone can see that it is also breathtakingly cruel and cynical.

*Middlesex officials continue to claim that there were “assaults and injuries” at the initial occupation. These are serious charges against protestors, and one wonders why the police are not investigating these supposed assaults and injuries if they really occurred. Are the police simply late in investigating them, or did Middlesex never report them? If the latter, then one wonders why they are being claimed in the media if the evidence was not sufficient to warrant police involvement.

*Furthermore, every time the police have been called to campus, they have found no wrongdoing, and left.

*The suspension of Hallward, Kerslake, Osborne, and at least four students is a staggering overreaction to normal peaceful sit-in tactics, and should not have been made prior to an investigation.

*The order that Hallward, Kerslake, and Osborne have no contact of any sort with Middlesex students is surely illegal, I would think. It is simply preposterous to think that a university can order specific people not to speak with one another, and especially so given that there are personal faculty-student friendships involved here as well, as is often the case in graduate programs in any field.

*Another evidently cynical claim by Middlesex is that they want to shift away from humanities and more toward lab-oriented fields (I’ve forgotten their terminology) in order to increase revenues. But the government funds laboratories more abundantly because they cost more. In other words, if funding is used properly, then there should be no net benefit from choosing any particular field– unless the new lab programs are to be funded on the cheap, with the difference being retained. Others made this point very early on.

I’ve spoken before of the “canary in a coal mine” aspect to this case, but I now think it’s a bit worse than that. For in the case of that old metaphor, it is not the miners themselves who introduce poisonous gas into the mines. The present case is more like someone deliberately euthanizing a canary, and if they get away with it then all the birds are in danger.

Leiter endorses Middlesex boycott

See HERE.

the latest from Middlesex

The highlights of this latest message will speak for themselves.

Campaign update Wednesday 26 May 2010 (http://savemdxphil.com/)

1. John Protevi and Todd May have posted a petition calling for an international academic boycott of Middlesex University, http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/academic-boycott-of-middlesex-university.html. Several hundred well-placed people have already signed it, in the space of a few hours. Please spread the word about this, far & wide.

2. The poet Michael Rosen renounced his visiting professor at Middlesex today. He explained that “On account of the action of Middlesex University over the Philosophy Department, I would like to inform Professor Ahmad that I would like to renounce my visiting professorship. I do not wish to be a visiting professor at Middlesex University. Best wishes, Michael Rosen.”

3. This morning, professors Osborne and Hallward were denied managerial permission to attend an emergency meeting of their union, the UCU, scheduled for Friday 28 May. They were also denied permission to attend the UCU annual general meeting scheduled for next Wednesday, and a meeting of the University’s self-constituted Professors Group.

4. Collective pressure to greylist i.e. boycott Middlesex University is growing rapidly. The external examiners for the Middlesex Philosophy department have already announced their refusal to collaborate with next month’s assessment boards, and colleagues in other departments may soon follow suit. A boycott by external examiners will have a significant and immediate impact on the University.

5. Last Friday Middlesex management told the four suspended students that their hearings would take place this Friday 28 May at the Hendon campus. Fiona Fall, who will preside over the hearings, suddenly decided this morning that it would be ‘better for the students’ to hold the meeting at Trent Park instead, since it is their ‘home campus.’ The four students explained that they would nonetheless prefer for the hearing to go ahead at Hendon as originally planned. But Fiona Fall has made up her mind. ‘As my understanding is that a rally of support is being organised at Hendon,’ she told one of the students, ‘I have decided that Trent Park continues to be the best most calm place to hold the hearings for both students and the panel.’

5. Confirmed speakers for the rally at Hendon on Thursday 27 May from 4pm include Alex Callinicos (KCL), Richard George (Campaign for Better Transport; Plane Stupid), Paul Gilroy (LSE), Nina Power (Roehampton), Jim Wolfreys (UCU), among others. Please circulate the rally announcement and flyer (http://savemdxphil.com/) to everyone who might be sympathetic.

The Campaign,
26 May 2010.

Middlesex boycott petition

Via Protevi. CLICK HERE FOR THE PETITION.

Dear Colleagues, the intransigence and bullying of the Middlesex administration prompts this call for an Academic Boycott of Middlesex University until restoration of its philosophy program.

Please consider signing the Call: http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/academic-boycott-of-middlesex-university.html. Please forward this to colleagues and listservs. Text of the Call follows.

On April 26 Middlesex University announced the closure of its highly-ranked and well-respected philosophy program. This closure has no philosophical or pedagogical rationale, and in fact it has no economic justification either: far from losing money, after covering its salary and administrative costs the program contributes more than 50% of its revenue to the central management of the university. But the management unilaterally decided that it could make more money by investing its funds elsewhere. (For an overview of the situation see http://savemdxphil.com/about/).

Despite wide-spread international protest of the closure in the form of thousands of letters and petition signatures, the management has shown no signs of reconsidering its decision. Instead it seems dedicated to censoring all dissent: on May 21 suspended three faculty members and several students for the ‘crime’ of campaigning to save their own courses and jobs.

It is time, then, for supporters of Middlesex Philosophy to take a more active stance.

We the undersigned therefore commit ourselves to an academic boycott of Middlesex University until it shows evidence of full reinstatement and continued support for its philosophy program. Prior to such reinstatement, we will refuse to act as external examiners or to deliver talks at the school. We will encourage colleagues to reject job offers at Middlesex. We will refuse to visit campus for any reason other than to protest the decision to close the philosophy program. We will, in short, cease to engage with Middlesex as a legitimate academic institution.

reading group on Vibrant Matter

Peter Gratton asked me to link to THE BENNETT READING GROUP, which I gladly do.

closing it out

Good end to this little Iowa City foray: dinner with my parents and cousin Taera at the restaurant depicted below. Devotay, a tapas place. My favorite tonight was the spiced almonds. Starting the return to Cairo tomorrow. And it’s a long trip.

great “prank” gift

Or maybe not such a prank. From Adrian Johnston, Deities and Demigods. It’s another piece of early 1980’s Dungeons and Dragons paraphernalia, and I’m not even sure I ever owned this volume in the past.

But since I agreed to write that article on The Monster Manual, Adrian decided I needed this one. And there’s a special twist to this version… This early edition contains all the Lovecraft monsters, which they apparently had to pull from later editions for legal reasons.

Happy Birthday

On the 27th, to my brother, who lives in Toronto.

translation nearing completion

The French translation of The Quadruple Object / L’objet quadruple is nearing completion. The small sample I saw (part of Chapter 3) read beautifully. The translator is Dr. Olivier Dubouclez, currently based in Lille.

cherry kolaches

We went for some of these today at a farmers’ market. They are a typical Czech baked good, eastern Iowa is pretty heavily Czech, and being 50% Czech myself I grew up with these (as well as with polka music on the radio on Sundays) at my grandparents’ house.