University of Warwick

July 15, 2010 – July 17, 2010

The University of Warwick, with the support of its Humanities Research Centre, is hosting Film-Philosophy III: The Third Annual Conference of Film and Philosophy, 15-17 July 2010.

For more details: http://www.warwick.ac.uk/go/film-philosophy

Dear Professors Driscoll, Ahmad, House and Esche

The editorial team at Film-Philosophy are shocked at the unjustifiable decision by the senior management of Middlesex University to close down its internationally important and influential Philosophy department.

As an Open Access journal in the interdisciplinary field of Philosophy and Film, we publish international scholarly work and host an email discussion salon with an international membership. We can attest to the global profile of Middlesex Philosophy staff, research and teaching programmes in the work that we publish and in the debates they help to shape. No other department within your institution can claim this level of global recognition and respect. More personally, and in common with many of our colleagues teaching in Philosophy and related subjects in the UK and abroad, we have benefitted from the excellent teaching, research and events produced by members of this department.

What we can’t understand is how you could countenance damaging that recognition and respect with the dubious claim that it provides no ‘measureable’ benefit to the university. What better measure can there be than the international esteem and influence of the truly ground-breaking work carried out by Middlesex Philosophy staff? To name only one very recent example: the AHRC-funded project (carried out by Peter Hallward and his colleagues) to archive and translate the influential French journal, Cahiers pour l’analyse, which will be an invaluable resource for future research, scholarship and pedagogy in this field. The high ranking of Middlesex Philosophy in the most recent RAE testifies to the international impact and importance of the department.

We believe that the name and reputation of Middlesex University is now at stake, and it must be apparent to you that the international outrage at this decision will only increase. It is not too late for you to repair and regain this international respect by reversing your decision and demonstrating what it is you all, as professors, profess to believe in: the value of the university as a place for the open, rigorous and critical intellectual scrutiny of our world.

Yours sincerely,

The Editorial Team

Film-Philosophy (www.film-philosophy.com/)

Dr David Sorfa, Liverpool John Moores University

Jon Baldwin, London Metropolitan University

Dr Havi Carel, University of the West of England

Dr Catherine Constable, University of Warwick

Dr Sarah Cooper, King’s College London

Dr David Martin-Jones, University of St Andrews

Dr Douglas Morrey, University of Warwick

Dr John Mullarkey, University of Dundee

Dr Benjamin Noys, University of Chichester

Dr Robert Sinnerbrink, Macquarie University, Australia

Dr Richard Stamp, Bath Spa University

Dr Damian Sutton, Glasgow School of Art

Dr Greg Tuck, University of the West of England

Dr Daniel Frampton, Founding Editor, UK