I wholly agree with Nathaniel that the seminars should remain within academia and that what BASA should be doing is convincing institutions of the importance of this ‘subject’.

How many of you have written to Prof. Philip Murphy? Don’t you think you should be pointing out to him that as he heads the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, it is high time the Institute recognised that the Commonwealth was not only ‘out there’ but was also here in the UK?

Marika

From: The Black and Asian Studies Association [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Nathaniel Adam Tobias Coleman
Sent: 25 September 2013 17:23
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Black & Asian history seminars, possible new venue

Colleagues,

It worries me that we are considering moving the study of black experience out of institutionalised academia, where it has gained some sort of footing.

I am impressed by the achievement of Deborah Gabriel and Dr Gil Robinson, in anchoring, within institutionalised academia, the new UK Centre for Research in Black Studies: http://blackstudiesresearchuk.org/. Let us join them or, at least, follow their strategy.

As trite as it sounds, we have to be in it, to win it. No one who wields any social or political power in this colonising country will listen to those who carp from the margins.

Nathaniel

Nathaniel Adam Tobias Coleman, PhD

Research Associate in the Philosophy of 'Race'

Department of Philosophy, University College London

Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, www.ucl.ac.uk/philosophy