Progressive Geographies

There is a forum in the journal Social Text on the notion of ‘impact’ in UK Higher Education. This is a key issue in the assessment of research, but the contributors range quite widely – Neil Smith compares US and UK universities; and Paula Gilligan discusses the issues arising out of the closure of Middlesex’s philosophy programme. (Thanks to Tariq Jazeel on crit-geog-forum for the alert)

Yes, really. All the details are here – http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/ABO084/lecturer-in-philosophy/

I was going to write something in response – ten month post, very quickly into teaching, the context, etc. – but Christine Battersby has said it all on the Philosophy in Europe list

Those who are puzzled about the recent job advert for the Lectureship in Philosophy at Middlesex University might appreciate some further background information.  

As is widely known, four of the Middlesex Philosophy staff have transferred to Kingston University and have taken with them the postgraduate programme. Middlesex is not admitting any new students onto the undergraduate degree. However, existing philosophy undergraduate students were told by Middlesex University that they would be able to finish their BA degrees. This advert seems to be Middlesex’s attempt to recruit–on a ten-month, fixed-term contract–the additional staff member required to fulfill this promise.

Christian Kerslake and Mark Kelly are the two existing philosophers who were–somewhat controversially–left behind by their colleagues at Middlesex. Christian Kerslake was centrally involved in the initial protests about the closure, and was one of the three philosophers suspended by Middlesex. His suspension was subsequently lifted, but it seems that he was not consulted by his colleagues about their move to Kingston, and he also remains committed to fighting for the continuance of the undergraduate degree at Middlesex. Christian Kerslake’s statement about the move can be read here;

http://savemdxphil.com/2010/06/08/announcement-8-june-the-crmep-is-moving-to-kingston–

Any philosopher thinking of applying for–or accepting–this position will also notice that the job starts only 2 days before the Middlesex term starts, leaving very little time for preparing course materials and the like. No doubt, given the present state of the academic job market, Middlesex will manage to recruit a philosopher for this post; but it would be good if those at the start of their careers could be alerted to the potential perils of this post.