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MEDIEVAL-RELIGION  February 2010

MEDIEVAL-RELIGION February 2010

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Subject:

King's College & palaeography & more

From:

George FERZOCO <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

medieval-religion - Scholarly discussions of medieval religious culture <[log in to unmask]>

Date:

Mon, 1 Feb 2010 22:06:51 +0000

Content-Type:

text/plain

Parts/Attachments:

Parts/Attachments

text/plain (182 lines)

medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture

Dear medieval-religion colleagues,

Following earlier messages to the list in regard to the situation at
King's College in relation to the teaching of palaeography there, I
thought I should forward this letter, written by the officers of the
Medieval Academy of America, for your consideration.

I urge you not to think, 'Oh, the Medieval Academy has written, so I
don't have to bother.' It goes far deeper than that. The higher
education sector in the United Kingdom, after about twenty years of
financial and intellectual erosion, is reaching a state of crisis.
Indeed, today alone, the U.K. government has announced cuts to
spending on universities amounting to close to a billion dollars.

These cuts have several powerfully negative effects.

One is that administrators, in trying to justify and keep their own
jobs, are looking either to frighten or otherwise to dismiss
academics in significant numbers such that a considerable number of
scholars will no longer be employed by universities, resulting in a
diminished financial burden on the system. They would rather do this
than argue against the government hacks who are cutting university
funding.

These administrators, in order to effect the latest government cuts,
are relying on a general feeling of powerlessness among academic
staff -- staff whose work must be vetted publicly for quality
regularly (often by panels who have little sympathy for the subject
areas under examination); staff who must routinely fill in time
sheets that describe how they spent their week doing what; staff who
know that unions in post-Thatcher Britain are feeble, at best. One
way they 'save money' is to rid their institutions of people who work
in disciplines less likely to attract money from public or private
sources -- hence, the purge of palaeography at King's.

All of this is particularly pertinent to medievalists. Why? Although
the U.K. bursts with medievalia, its elected representatives have
over recent years demonstrated a powerfully negative attitude toward
medieval studies. There are several examples that come to mind, but
let this one suffice: that of Charles Clarke, a minister of education
under Tony Blair, who publicly spoke of how medieval history is
'ornamental' and a waste of public money, and called for public money
to be spent on higher education only where the subjects are of 'clear
usefulness'.

Don't believe me? Read:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2003/may/09/highereducation.politics

This attitude is very much alive and well among those seeking to
curry the favour of government officials and ministers. Example? A
well-informed source tells me that a major U.K. university has
decided that the way it will save money in its history department is
to get rid of three scholars -- the only three scholars in the
department who work on the pre-1800 period.

Do not be lulled into thinking that this is someone else's problem.
It's a problem shared by all of us (remember John Donne!). Write the
people at King's, please.

George

--
George FERZOCO
[log in to unmask]



Begin forwarded message:

> From: The Medieval Academy of America <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: 1 February 2010 20:52:49 GMT
> Reply-To: [log in to unmask]
>
>
>
>
> The Medieval Academy of America
>
> E-mail Distribution List
> 31 January 2010
>
>                           31 January 2010
>
>
> Professor Rick Trainor. The Principal
> King's College
> The Strand, London WC2R 2LS
> United Kingdom
> [log in to unmask]
>
> Professor Jan Palmowski, Head
> School of Arts and Humanities
> King's College
> The Strand, London WC2R 2LS
> United Kingdom
> [log in to unmask]
>
>
> Dear Profs. Trainor and Palmowski:
>
> We write to you as elected officers of the Medieval Academy of
> America, the major association of medievalists in North America,
> with some 4000 members, to express our deep concern about the
> reported plan to eliminate the position of Professor of
> Palaeography at King's College London.
>
> Most of us are, ourselves, members of educational institutions; and
> we include among our number, deans, former deans, directors, and
> even presidents of colleges and universities.  We are therefore
> fully aware of the pressures you are facing at this moment of
> financial difficulty.  Indeed, we are in principle reluctant to
> meddle in internal matters of independent institutions.  But, we
> believe that the King's College plan is not simply an intramural
> decision but one with broad consequences; and so we are motivated
> to ask you to reconsider it.
>
> As you already know, King's College has had a long history of
> distinguished teaching and research in medieval subjects, up to
> this very moment, including the threatened chair's incumbent,
> Professor David Ganz, an eminent historian and philologist.  What
> we want to underscore, therefore, is not only our concern about the
> diminishing of that legacy, but also the importance more generally
> of the subject of palaeography itself  The study and interpretation
> of ancient handwriting is, of course, important in its own right;
> but it is also fundamental to many other medieval and early modern
> disciplines that depend on the accurate deciphering of manuscript
> documents and their proper understanding. Training in palaeographic
> methods, moreover, teaches complex heuristic techniques more
> generally and is valuable, therefore, to anyone interested in
> hermeneutical processes.
>
> Decisions like that of King's College have been made in many
> universities for several generations, so you would not be the
> first.  But we are now near the bottom and, in the English-speaking
> world, more or less, reaching it. That is why the officers of the
> Medieval Academy of America are so concerned.  Perhaps there is
> even some practical way that the Academy might, in the future, help
> you preserve this valuable tradition, for instance, by sponsoring
> joint seminars.  In the meantime, however, we urge you very
> strongly to reconsider the decision.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Herbert L. Kessler
> President (Johns Hopkins University)
>
> Elizabeth Brown
> First Vice-President (Brooklyn College)
>
> Alice-Mary Talbot
> Second Vice-President (Dumbarton Oaks)
>
> Barbara Shailor
> Treasurer (Yale University)
>
> Councilors
>
>             Theodolina Barolini (Columbia University)
> Rita Copeland (University of Pennsylvania)
> Paul Dutton (Simon Fraser University)
> David Klausner (University of Toronto)
> Peggy McCracken (University of Michigan)
> Elizabeth Sears (University of Michigan)
> Danuta Shanzer (University of Illinois)
> Carol Symes (University of Illinois)
> Nancy L. Wicker (University of Mississippi)

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