Dear Peter,
Your letter to Sue certainly helped clarified the situation, and I think
there are two (predictable) responses:
- having Cultural Studies split between 3 centres makes having a sense of
disciplinary presence in the LTSN difficult;
- we need to find out how best to avoid being subsumed under other subjects
particularly in relation to funding.
Other thoughts:
I think its important not to take a 'victim position' in relation to this,
and clearly the subject centres are trying to address some of these problems
themselves. But the Arts/ Social Science/ Science divides are strong in HE in
relation to funding as we know.
As a Subject Association I think we need to think through how best to
represent and defend Cultural Studies, in its interdisciplinary singularity,
as it were, particularly in relation to a perceived general shift of Media
Studies into scientific/technological types of knowledges which can be seen
as an attempt to validate MS as 'strong' 'true' and 'useful', in response to
tabloid slurs etc.
As the bridge person between MeCCSA and the LTSN, I'd be happy to represent
us how you see fit,
All the best,
Sally
Dr Sally R Munt
Reader in Media Studies & Course Convenor MA Media Studies
136 Essex House, University of Sussex
Falmer, Brighton. BN1 9RQ
Phone 01273 678954
Fax 01273 6786444
-- Begin original message --
> From: Peter Golding <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Mon, 11 Mar 2002 12:01:17 +0000
> Subject: Learning and Teaching Centres in our field
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Reply-To: Peter Golding <[log in to unmask]>
>
> The MeCCSA Executive Committee has sought clarification about the place of
> our field in the Learning and Teaching Support Network, as we were a little
> concerned at overlaps in responsibility between initially two, and latterly
> three,Centres. The following letter on behalf of the Centres, from the
> Director of C-SAP at Birmingham, helps clarify the position.Members may
> also wish to know that the Committee is seeking support from the Network on
> behalf of the field for teaching and learning initiatives.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Professor Peter Golding
> MeCCSA
> Dept of Social Sciences
> Loughborough University
> Loughborough
> Leics LE11 3TU
>
> 27 February 2002
>
>
>
> Dear Peter Golding,
>
> Thank you for your letter of 20 February requesting clarification of LTSN’s
> mapping of subjects.
>
> Initially, LTSN set up two subject centres covering the following subjects:
>
> ADC at Brighton University covering Art, Design and Communication (the
> latter includes Media)
>
> C-SAP at Birmingham University covering Sociology, Anthropology and
> Politics.
>
> These two subject centres realised that cultural studies had been left off
> the map and were successful in a joint bid for project funding from the
> LTSN Executive to extend their services to Cultural Studies. The English
> Subject Centre has now joined in, so the three subject centres are
> collaborating on Cultural Studies.
>
> This cultural studies project will be carried out by two specially
> appointed academic coordinators, Angela Devas at ADC, and someone (part
> time) to be appointed on 8 March at C-SAP. Siobham Holland is representing
> English.
>
> The project has three elements:
>
> 1. Establishing a network of departmental contacts in cultural studies
> 2. Developing learning and teaching resources on cultural studies on
> our websites
> 3. Project funding.
>
> The three subject centres are meeting on 11 March to establish divisions of
> labour and lines of communication regarding the first two above.
>
> I hope this clarifies the situation. I would be grateful if you would
> circulate this information to your members. I would like to send you a
> further update in due course.
>
> Yours sincerely,
>
>
> Sue Wright
> Director of C-SAP
>
-- End original message --
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