Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Those Student Fee Increases

this blog, last week - against the student tuition fee increases :

"the Gove option will mean that a lot of bright working or lower-middle class kids will look at a potential £60,000 debt and they won't bother - unless they're at Oxbridge or doing a course with a pretty much guaranteed career at the end of it. Outside this small subset of courses, university will be restricted to those whose parents can subsidise them - i.e. the very rich.

That's not all bad - I can see cultural studies departments being disbanded across England and Wales. Economic forces will cut away swathes of courses and institutions, correcting the insane growth of the last 25 years.

But at that kind of cost the idea of education as a good in itself will wither away. Who's going to do archaeology without a private income ?"


I'm pleased to say that Goldsmiths Cultural Studies lecturer - now professor - John Hutnyk has got together with some likeminded souls, and very kindly put together a suggested hitlist of disciplines (and indeed, individuals) for the chop.


As he rightly points out, "Browne’s plans will drive whole fields of knowledge into decline" - such fields of knowledge as :

Race and Cultural Studies

Critical Theory and Philosophical Aesthetics

Contemporary Literature and Culture

Cultural History

Women’s Studies

English and Cultural Studies

Media Arts

Women’s and Gender History

Visual Cultures

Memory Studies ( I forget what that is - LT)

I guess every cloud has a silver lining ...

4 comments:

Paulinus said...

I can see it now. Loads of bearded, sandled blokes in corduroy jackets, a thin dog on a string at their side, a paper cup in front of them with some loose change in it, holding up signs saying:
"WILL ANALYSE DECONSTRUCTION METHODOLOGY OF HERMENEUTIC IN TERMS OF EVOLUTIONARY EPISTEMOLOGY FOR FOOD"

moriarty said...

It would be nice to think that all of these joke subjects will eventually disappear, but the pessimist in me says that as they all have very low equipment costs compared to the hard sciences, plus a much reduced requirement for good quality lecturers, they'll still be around for as long as the state/NGOs are prepared to hire the graduates.

Anonymous said...

You think philosophy, history & literature are 'joke subjects'?

We wouldn't have 'the hard sciences' if it weren't for philosophy - tho you wouldn't know that would you, because you don't do history...

moriarty said...

And where did anyone here say that philosophy, history & literature were the joke subjects? Did you bother to read the post before you replied?