Dear Frank,
Indeed, this is preposterous - it sounds like yet another instance of the financial
situation being used as a pretext to attack not merely medieval studies, but the
whole dimension of historical scholarship fundamental to our discipline.
Yes, we need to know to whom comments should be addressed. Could you - or
perhaps someone currently in post at Bristol who has more precise details -
please supply more information about the background to this decision and
about who is responsible and in what capacity, and whether others at Bristol are
being treated in the same way?
Best wishes
David
Emeritus Professor David A. Wells
Birkbeck College
University of London
---- Original message ----
>Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2010 19:23:08 +0100
>From: "Carter, Erica" <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Re: Threatened dismissal of Dr Anne Simon
>To: [log in to unmask]
>
> Dear Frank,
>
> Do you have contact details for someone to send a
> response to at Bristol?
>
> Erica
>
> Professor Erica Carter
> Department of German Studies
> University of Warwick
> Coventry
> CV4 7AL
> Tel. +44 (0) 2476 524419 (department office)
> FAX. +44 (0) 2476 528173
>
> ------------------------------------------------
>
> From: JISCmail German Studies List on behalf of
> Frank Shaw
> Sent: Thu 10/28/2010 4:07 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Threatened dismissal of Dr Anne Simon
>
> Colleagues and lovers of German,
> German departments are being closed, jobs are being
> axed all over the
> place, so what’s so special about Dr Anne Simon?
> Three things. Firstly,
> she is my successor, which gives me a particular
> interest. She was
> appointed to the medieval post in the University of
> Bristol German
> Department in 1992, two years before I retired from
> that post in 1994,
> after holding it since 1967 in succession to Dr
> Estelle Morgan and
> therefore by proxy to August Closs. Secondly, she
> seems by all accounts to
> have been informed, curtly and unceremoniously, that
> she was to go without
> the framers of this decision having consulted the
> rest of the department.
> Thirdly, her departure would deprive the department
> not only of the only
> colleague able to teach German literature before the
> modern period (during
> her term of office she has extended medieval studies
> to medieval and early
> modern studies), but also of the widest-ranging
> teacher in the department,
> who forays out into the 18th, 19th and 20th
> centuries (as of course all we
> medievalists do), offering courses on travel
> literature and on Judaism and
> Islam in the second year. In addition, in her
> final-year unit on
> Nuremberg, her special field of research interest,
> she covers not only the
> Hans Sachs period, but also Nuremberg of the NS
> rallies and the trials, as
> well as the contemporary city. Her departure would
> leave a
> doctor-candidate without supervisor and break off
> any link between German
> medieval studies in the neighbouring disciplines of
> French, Italian and
> Spanish. It is not without relevance that she is a
> founder-member and
> active participant in the University’s Centre for
> Medieval Studies, on the
> steering-committees of both the Art Lecture series
> and the Centre for
> Classical Studies (a book on the Medea legend
> co-edited by her appeared
> only recently) and has been engaged for many years
> on a book on the
> importance of Nuremberg in the early modern period.
> I think there is a
> case for making the ‘powers that be’ rethink
> their decision. German in
> Bristol cannot afford to lose anybody (staff-numbers
> have already been
> reduced to four – it was eleven when I was
> appointed), least of all Anne
> Simon.
> --
> Professor Frank Shaw
> 57 Westbury Road
> BRISTOL
> BS9 3AS
> Tel: 0117 9629578
> Fax: 0117 9622629
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