Apologies - I sent this message last week from Poland, but catching up with my email back in the UK it seems it appeared on the list as gobbldegook (sp?).
Sorry! This is what I said:
I'm out of the country so catching up on email belatedly, so I apologise if someone else has already replied to this and I haven't seen it.
Yes, Cultural Studies/Sociology at Birmingham are being 'restructured' - which seems to involve the dismantling of the department and the creation of 4 new Cultural Studies posts elsewhere in the University (possibly English, Social Policy???). This means the loss of at least 7 jobs (there are currently 11 staff in the dept. - both Cult Studs and Sociology).
You can check out the Guardian story which seems to have been initiated by students here:
http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/socialsciences/story/0,9846,745058,00.html
And the University's own line on this is on their News page at:
http://www.newscentre.bham.ac.uk/recentreleases.htm
(click on "University announces the creation of two new institutes")
This runs alongside the merger of Geography and Environmental Sciences with Earth Sciences (involving job loss in Earth Sciences) and the restructuring of Historical Studies (History and Theology) and Classics.
No one really seems to know what is happening (and I'm a bit out of the loop being away from Birmingham) but the University hasn't _yet_ moved to compulsory redundancies (Birmingham AUT is currently challenging the University legally on this) but is being so vague about these departments' futures that there doesn't seem to be much choice for staff - accept voluntary severance/early retirement or wait and be forced to take compulsory redundancy.
I'm not sure what, if anything, Cult. Studs. is planning on doing in response, but I hope this helps simply for information's sake.
Alison Stenning
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